Sydney explained.
"Pardon me, madam, it"s not so much a hurry we"re in as pressed for time,-this is a matter of life and death."
She turned her attention to Sydney,-speaking with a frankness for which, I imagine, he was unprepared.
"I don"t want none of your imperence, young man. I"ve seen you before,-you"ve been hanging about here the whole day long!-and I don"t like the looks of you, and so I"ll let you know. That"s my front door, and that"s my knocker,-I"ll come down and open when I like, but I"m not going to be hurried, and if the knocker"s so much as touched again, I won"t come down at all."
She closed the window with a bang. Sydney seemed divided between mirth and indignation.
"That"s a nice old lady, on my honour,-one of the good old crusty sort. Agreeable characters this neighbourhood seems to grow,-a sojourn hereabouts should do one good. Unfortunately I don"t feel disposed just now to stand and kick my heels in the road." Again saluting the old dame by raising his hat he shouted to her at the top of his voice. "Madam, I beg ten thousand pardons for troubling you, but this is a matter in which every second is of vital importance,-would you allow me to ask you one or two questions?"
Up went the window; out came the old lady"s head.
"Now, young man, you needn"t put yourself out to holler at me,-I won"t be hollered at! I"ll come down and open that door in five minutes by the clock on my mantelpiece, and not a moment before."
The fiat delivered, down came the window. Sydney looked rueful,- he consulted his watch.
"I don"t know what you think, Champnell, but I really doubt if this comfortable creature can tell us anything worth waiting another five minutes to hear. We mustn"t let the gra.s.s grow under our feet, and time is getting on."
I was of a different opinion,-and said so.
"I"m afraid, Atherton, that I can"t agree with you. She seems to have noticed you hanging about all day; and it is at least possible that she has noticed a good deal which would be well worth our hearing. What more promising witness are we likely to find?-her house is the only one which overlooks the one we have just quitted. I am of opinion that it may not only prove well worth our while to wait five minutes, but also that it would be as well, if possible, not to offend her by the way. She"s not likely to afford us the information we require if you do."
"Good. If that"s what you think I"m sure I"m willing to wait,- only it"s to be hoped that that clock upon her mantelpiece moves quicker than its mistress."
Presently, when about a minute had gone, he called to the cabman.
"Seen a sign of anything?"
The cabman shouted back.
"Ne"er a sign,-you"ll hear a sound of popguns when I do."
Those five minutes did seem long ones. But at last Sydney, from his post of vantage in the road, informed us that the old lady was moving.
"She"s getting up;-she"s leaving the window;-let"s hope to goodness she"s coming down to open the door. That"s been the longest five minutes I"ve known."
I could hear uncertain footsteps descending the stairs. They came along the pa.s.sage. The door was opened-"on the chain." The old lady peered at us through an aperture of about six inches.
"I don"t know what you young men think you"re after, but have all three of you in my house I won"t. I"ll have him and you"-a skinny finger was pointed to Lessingham and me; then it was directed towards Atherton-"but have him I won"t. So if it"s anything particular you want to say to me, you"ll just tell him to go away."
On hearing this Sydney"s humility was abject. His hat was in his hand,-he bent himself double.
"Suffer me to make you a million apologies, madam, if I have in any way offended you; nothing, I a.s.sure you, could have been farther from my intention, or from my thoughts."
"I don"t want none of your apologies, and I don"t want none of you neither; I don"t like the looks of you, and so I tell you. Before I let anybody into my house you"ll have to sling your hook."
The door was banged in our faces. I turned to Sydney.
"The sooner you go the better it will be for us. You can wait for us over the way."
He shrugged his shoulders, and groaned,-half in jest, half in earnest.
"If I must I suppose I must,-it"s the first time I"ve been refused admittance to a lady"s house in all my life! What have I done to deserve this thing?-If you keep me waiting long I"ll tear that infernal den to pieces!"
He sauntered across the road, viciously kicking the stones as he went. The door reopened.
"Has that other young man gone?"
"He has."
"Then now I"ll let you in. Have him inside my house I won"t."
The chain was removed. Lessingham and I entered. Then the door was refastened and the chain replaced. Our hostess showed us into the front room on the ground floor; it was spa.r.s.ely furnished and not too clean,-but there were chairs enough for us to sit upon; which she insisted on our occupying.
"Sit down, do,-I can"t abide to see folks standing; it gives me the fidgets."
So soon as we were seated, without any overture on our parts she plunged in medias res.
"I know what it is you"ve come about,-I know! You want me to tell you who it is as lives in the house over the road. Well, I can tell you,-and I dare bet a shilling that I"m about the only one who can."
I inclined my head.
"Indeed. Is that so, madam?"
She was huffed at once.
"Don"t madam me,-I can"t bear none of your lip service. I"m a plain-spoken woman, that"s what I am, and I like other people"s tongues to be as plain as mine. My name"s Miss Louisa Coleman; but I"m generally called Miss Coleman,-I"m only called Louisa by my relatives."
Since she was apparently between seventy and eighty-and looked every year of her apparent age-I deemed that possible. Miss Coleman was evidently a character. If one was desirous of getting information out of her it would be necessary to allow her to impart it in her own manner,-to endeavour to induce her to impart it in anybody else"s would be time clean wasted. We had Sydney"s fate before our eyes.
She started with a sort of roundabout preamble.
"This property is mine; it was left me by my uncle, the late George Henry Jobson,-he"s buried in Hammersmith Cemetery just over the way,-he left me the whole of it. It"s one of the finest building sites near London, and it increases in value every year, and I"m not going to let it for another twenty, by which time the value will have more than trebled,-so if that is what you"ve come about, as heaps of people do, you might have saved yourselves the trouble. I keep the boards standing, just to let people know that the ground is to let,-though, as I say, it won"t be for another twenty years, when it"ll be for the erection of high-cla.s.s mansions only, same as there is in Grosvenor Square,-no shops or public houses, and none of your shanties. I live in this place just to keep an eye upon the property,-and as for the house over the way, I"ve never tried to let it, and it never has been let, not until a month ago, when, one morning, I had this letter. You can see it if you like."
She handed me a greasy envelope which she ferreted out of a capacious pocket which was suspended from her waist, and which she had to lift up her skirt to reach. The envelope was addressed, in unformed characters, "Miss Louisa Coleman, The Rhododendrons, Convolvulus Avenue, High Oaks Park, West Kensington."-I felt, if the writer had not been of a humorous turn of mind, and drawn on his imagination, and this really was the lady"s correct address, then there must be something in a name.
The letter within was written in the same straggling, characterless caligraphy,-I should have said, had I been asked offhand, that the whole thing was the composition of a servant girl. The composition was about on a par with the writing.
"The undersigned would be oblidged if Miss Coleman would let her emptey house. I do not know the rent but send fifty pounds. If more will send. Please address, Mohamed el Kheir, Post Office, Sligo Street, London."
It struck me as being as singular an application for a tenancy as I remembered to have encountered. When I pa.s.sed it on to Lessingham, he seemed to think so too.
"This is a curious letter, Miss Coleman."
"So I thought,-and still more so when I found the fifty pounds inside. There were five ten-pound notes, all loose, and the letter not even registered. If I had been asked what was the rent of the house, I should have said, at the most, not more than twenty pounds,-because, between you and me, it wants a good bit of doing up, and is hardly fit to live in as it stands."
I had had sufficient evidence of the truth of this altogether apart from the landlady"s frank admission.
"Why, for all he could have done to help himself I might have kept the money, and only sent him a receipt for a quarter. And some folks would have done,-but I"m not one of that sort myself, and shouldn"t care to be. So I sent this here party,-I never could p.r.o.nounce his name, and never shall-a receipt for a year."