The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes (color ebook reader txt) 📕

“You should have sent me this note before the proceedings began. This gentleman,” he said, addressing the jury, “informs me that he has something of the utmost importance to reveal in connection with our investigation.”

“I have remained silent—I have locked what I knew within my own breast”—began Mr. Cannot in a quavering voice, “because I am so afraid of the Press! I knew if I said anything, even to the police, that my house would be besieged by reporters and newspaper men… . I have a delicate wife, Mr. Coroner. Such a state of things—the state of things I imagine—might cause her death—indeed, I hope she will never read a report of these proceedings. Fortunately, she has an excellent trained nurse—”

“You will now take the oath,” said the coroner sharply. He already regretted having allowed this absurd person to have his say.

Mr. Cannot took the oath with a gravity and decorum which had been lacking in most of those who had preceded him.

“I will address myself to the jury,” he began.

“You will do nothing of the sort,” broke in the coroner. “Now, please attend to me. You assert in your letter that you know who is the—the—”

“The Avenger,” put in Mr. Cannot promptly.

“The perpetrator of these crimes. You further declare that you met him on the very night he committed the murder we are now investigating?”

“I do so declare,” said Mr. Cannot confidently. “Though in the best of health myself,”—he beamed round the court, a now amused, attentive court—“it is my fate to be surrounded by sick people, to have only ailing friends. I have to trouble you with my private affairs, Mr. Coroner, in order to explain why I happened to be out at so undue an hour as one o’clock in the morning—”

Again a titter ran through the court. Even the jury broke into broad smiles.

“Yes,” went on the witness solemnly, “I was with a sick friend—in fact, I may say a dying friend, for since then he has passed away. I will not reveal my exact dwelling-place; you, sir, have it on my notepaper. It is not necessary to reveal it, but you will understand me when I say that in order to come home I had to pass through a portion of the Regent’s Park; and it was there—to be exact, about the middle of Prince’s Terrace—when a very peculiar-looking individual stopped and accosted me.”

Mrs. Bunting’s hand shot up to her breast. A feeling of deadly fear took possession of her.

“I mustn’t faint,” she said to herself hurriedly. “I mustn’t faint! Whatever’s the matter with me?” She took out her bottle of smelling-salts, and gave it a good, long sniff.

“He was a grim, gaunt man, was this stranger, Mr. Coroner, with a very odd-looking face. I should say an educated man—in common parlance, a gentleman. What drew my special attention to him was that he was talking aloud to himself—in fact, he seemed to be repeating poetry. I give you my word, I had no thought of The Avenger, no thought at all. To tell you the truth, I thought this gentleman was a poor escaped lunatic, a man who’d got away from his keeper. The Regent’s Park, sir, as I need hardly tell you, is a most quiet and soothing neighbourhood—”

And then a member of the general public gave a loud guffaw.

“I appeal to you; sir,” the old gentleman suddenly cried out “to protect me from this unseemly levity! I have not come here with any other object than that of doing my duty as a citizen!”

“I must ask you to keep to what is strictly relevant,” said the coroner stiffly. “Time is going on, and I have another important witness to call—a medical witness. Kindly tell me, as shortly as possible, what made you suppose that this stranger could possibly be—” with an effort he brought out for the first time since the proceedings began, the words, “The Avenger?”

“I am coming to that!” said Mr. Cannot hastily. “I am coming to that! Bear with me a little longer, Mr. Coroner. It was a foggy night, but not as foggy as it became later. And just when we were passing one another, I and this man, who was talking aloud to himself—he, instead of going on, stopped and turned towards me. That made me feel queer and uncomfortable, the more so that there was a very wild, mad look on his face. I said to him, as soothingly as possible, ‘A very foggy night, sir.’ And he said, ‘Yes—yes, it is a foggy night, a night fit for the commission of dark and salutary deeds.’ A very strange phrase, sir, that—‘dark and salutary deeds.’” He looked at the coroner expectantly—

“Well? Well, Mr. Cannot? Was that all? Did you see this person go off in the direction of—of King’s Cross, for instance?”

“No.” Mr. Cannot reluctantly shook his head. “No, I must honestly say I did not. He walked along a certain way by my side, and then he crossed the road and was lost in the fog.”

“That will do,” said the coroner. He spoke more kindly. “I thank you, Mr. Cannot, for coming here and giving us what you evidently consider important information.”

Mr. Cannot bowed, a funny, little, old-fashioned bow, and again some of those present tittered rather foolishly.

As he was stepping down from the witness-box, he turned and looked up at the coroner, opening his lips as he did so. There was a murmur of talking going on, but Mrs. Bunting, at any rate, heard quite distinctly what it was that he said:

“One thing I have forgotten, sir, which may be of importance. The man carried a bag—a rather light-coloured leather bag, in his left hand. It was such a bag, sir, as might well contain a long-handled knife.”

Mrs. Bunting looked at the reporters’ table. She remembered suddenly that she had told Bunting about the disappearance of Mr. Sleuth’s bag. And then a feeling of intense thankfulness came over her; not a single reporter at the long, ink-stained table had put down that last remark of Mr. Cannot. In fact, not one of them had heard it.

Again the last witness put up his hand to command attention. And then silence did fall on the court.

“One word more,” he said in a quavering voice. “May I ask to be accommodated with a seat for the rest of the proceedings? I see there is some room left on the witnesses’ bench.” And, without waiting for permission, he nimbly stepped across and sat down.

Mrs. Bunting looked up, startled. Her friend, the inspector, was bending over her.

“Perhaps you’d like to come along now,” he said urgently.—“I don’t suppose you want to hear the medical evidence. It’s always painful for a female to hear that. And there’ll be an awful rush when the inquest’s over. I could get you away quietly now.”

She rose, and, pulling her veil down over her pale face, followed him obediently.

Down the stone staircase they went, and through the big, now empty, room downstairs.

“I’ll let you out the back way,” he said. “I expect you’re tired, ma’am, and will like to get home to a cup o’ tea.”

“I don’t know how to thank you!” There were tears in her eyes. She was trembling with excitement and emotion. “You have been good to me.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” he said a little awkwardly. “I expect you went though a pretty bad time, didn’t you?”

“Will they be having that old gentleman again?” she spoke in a whisper, and looked up at him with a pleading, agonised look.

“Good Lord, no! Crazy old fool! We’re troubled with a lot of those sort of people, you know, ma’am, and they often do have funny names, too. You see, that sort is busy all their lives in the City, or what not; then they retires when they gets about sixty, and they’re fit to hang themselves with dulness. Why, there’s hundreds of lunies of the sort to be met in London. You can’t go about at night and not meet ‘em. Plenty of ‘em!”

“Then you don’t think there was anything in what he said?” she ventured.

“In what that old gent said? Goodness—no!” he laughed good-naturedly. “But I’ll tell you what I do think. If it wasn’t for the time that had gone by, I should believe that the second witness had seen that crafty devil—” he lowered his voice. “But, there, Dr. Gaunt declares most positively—so did two other medical gentlemen—that the poor creatures had been dead hours when they was found. Medical gentlemen are always very positive about their evidence. They have to be—otherwise who’d believe ‘em? If we’d time I could tell you of a case in which—well, ‘twas all because of Dr. Gaunt that the murderer escaped. We all knew perfectly well the man we caught did it, but he was able to prove an alibi as to the time Dr. Gaunt said the poor soul was killed.”