Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1876 page)

Good-by to Lady Lydiard — who differs with Miss Pink, and would have regretted it, to
her
dying day, if the answer had been Yes.

Good-by to Moody and Isabel — whose history has closed with the closing of the clergyman’s book on their wedding-day.

Good-by to Hardyman — who has sold his farm and his horses, and has begun a new life among the famous fast trotters of America.

Good-by to Old Sharon — who, a martyr to his promise, brushed his hair and washed his face in honour of Moody’s marriage; and catching a severe cold as the necessary consequence, declared, in the intervals of sneezing, that he would “never do it again.”

And last, not least, good-by to Tommie? No. The writer gave Tommie his dinner not half an hour since, and is too fond of him to say good-by.

OR

MR. POLICEMAN AND THE COOK.

A first word for myself

BEFORE the doctor left me one evening, I asked him how much longer I was likely to live. He answered: “It’s not easy to say; you may die before I can get back to you in the morning, or you may live to the end of the month.”

I was alive enough on the next morning to think of the needs of my soul, and (being a member of the Roman Catholic Church) to send for the priest.

The history of my sins, related in confession, included blameworthy neglect of a duty which I owed to the laws of my country. In the priest’s opinion — and I agreed with him — I was bound to make public acknowledgment of my fault, as an act of penance becoming to a Catholic Englishman. We concluded, thereupon, to try a division of labour. I related the circumstances, while his reverence took the pen and put the matter into shape.

Here follows what came of it:

I.

WHEN I was a young man of five-and-twenty, I became a member of the London police force. After nearly two years’ ordinary experience of the responsible and ill-paid duties of that vocation, I found myself employed on my first serious and terrible case of official inquiry — relating to nothing less than the crime of Murder.

The circumstances were these:

I was then attached to a station in the northern district of London — which I beg permission not to mention more particularly. On a certain Monday in the week, I took my turn of night duty. Up to four in the morning, nothing occurred at the station-house out of the ordinary way. It was then springtime, and, between the gas and the fire, the room became rather hot. I went to the door to get a breath of fresh air — much to the surprise of our Inspector on duty, who was constitutionally a chilly man. There was a fine rain falling; and a nasty damp in the air sent me back to the fireside. I don’t suppose I had sat down for more than a minute when the swinging-door was violently pushed open. A frantic woman ran in with a scream, and said: “Is this the station-house?”

Our Inspector (otherwise an excellent officer) had, by some perversity of nature, a hot temper in his chilly constitution. “Why, bless the woman, can’t you see it is?” he says. “What’s the matter now?”

“Murder’s the matter!” she burst out. “For God’s sake, come back with me. It’s at Mrs. Crosscapel’s lodging-house, number 14 Lehigh Street. A young woman has murdered her husband in the night! With a knife, sir. She says she thinks she did it in her sleep.”

I confess I was startled by this; and the third man on duty (a sergeant) seemed to feel it too. She was a nice-looking young woman, even in her terrified condition, just out of bed, with her clothes huddled on anyhow. I was partial in those days to a tall figure — and she was, as they say, my style. I put a chair for her; and the sergeant poked the fire. As for the Inspector, nothing ever upset
him
. He questioned her as coolly as if it had been a case of petty larceny.

“Have you seen the murdered man?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“Or the wife?”

“No, sir. I didn’t dare go into the room; I only heard about it!”

“Oh? And who are You? One of the lodgers?”

“No, sir. I’m the cook.”

“Isn’t there a master in the house?”

“Yes, sir. He’s frightened out of his wits. And the housemaid’s gone for the doctor. It all falls on the poor servants, of course. Oh, why did I ever set foot in that horrible house?”

The poor soul burst out crying, and shivered from head to foot. The Inspector made a note of her statement, and then asked her to read it, and sign it with her name. The object of this proceeding was to get her to come near enough to give him the opportunity of smelling her breath. “When people make extraordinary statements,” he afterward said to me, “it sometimes saves trouble to satisfy yourself that they are not drunk. I’ve known them to be mad — but not often. You will generally find
that
in their eyes.”

She roused herself and signed her name — ”Priscilla Thurlby.” The Inspector’s own test proved her to be sober; and her eyes — a nice light blue colour, mild and pleasant, no doubt, when they were not staring with fear, and red with crying — satisfied him (as I supposed) that she was not mad. He turned the case over to me, in the first instance. I saw that he didn’t believe in it, even yet.

“Go back with her to the house,” he says. “This may be a stupid hoax, or a quarrel exaggerated. See to it yourself, and hear what the doctor says. If it is serious, send word back here directly, and let nobody enter the place or leave it till we come. Stop! You know the form if any statement is volunteered?”

“Yes, sir. I am to caution the persons that whatever they say will be taken down, and may be used against them.”

“Quite right. You’ll be an Inspector yourself one of these days. Now, miss!” With that he dismissed her, under my care.

Lehigh Street was not very far off — about twenty minutes’ walk from the station. I confess I thought the Inspector had been rather hard on Priscilla. She was herself naturally angry with him. “What does he mean,” she says, “by talking of a hoax? I wish he was as frightened as I am. This is the first time I have been out at service, sir — and I did think I had found a respectable place.”

I said very little to her — feeling, if the truth must be told, rather anxious about the duty committed to me. On reaching the house the door was opened from within, before I could knock. A gentleman stepped out, who proved to be the doctor. He stopped the moment he saw me.

“You must be careful, policeman,” he says. “I found the man lying on his back, in bed, dead — with the knife that had killed him left sticking in the wound.”

Hearing this, I felt the necessity of sending at once to the station. Where could I find a trustworthy messenger? I took the liberty of asking the doctor if he would repeat to the police what he had already said to me. The station was not much out of his way home. He kindly granted my request.

The landlady (Mrs. Crosscapel) joined us while we were talking. She was still a young woman; not easily frightened, as far as I could see, even by a murder in the house. Her husband was in the passage behind her. He looked old enough to be her father; and he so trembled with terror that some people might have taken him for the guilty person. I removed the key from the street door, after locking it; and I said to the landlady: “Nobody must leave the house, or enter the house, till the Inspector comes. I must examine the premises to see if any one has broken in.”

“There is the key of the area gate,” she said, in answer to me. “It’s always kept locked. Come downstairs and see for yourself.” Priscilla went with us. Her mistress set her to work to light the kitchen fire. “Some of us,” says Mrs. Crosscapel, “may be the better for a cup of tea.” I remarked that she took things easy, under the circumstances. She answered that the landlady of a London lodging-house could not afford to lose her wits, no matter what might happen.

I found the gate locked, and the shutters of the kitchen window fastened. The back kitchen and back door were secured in the same way. No person was concealed anywhere. Returning upstairs, I examined the front parlor window. There, again, the barred shutters answered for the security of that room. A cracked voice spoke through the door of the back parlor. “The policeman can come in,” it said, “if he will promise not to look at me.” I turned to the landlady for information. “It’s my parlor lodger, Miss Mybus,” she said, “a most respectable lady.” Going into the room, I saw something rolled up perpendicularly in the bed curtains. Miss Mybus had made herself modestly invisible in that way. Having now satisfied my mind about the security of the lower part of the house, and having the keys safe in my pocket, I was ready to go upstairs.

On our way to the upper regions I asked if there had been any visitors on the previous day. There had been only two visitors, friends of the lodgers — and Mrs. Crosscapel herself had let them both out. My next inquiry related to the lodgers themselves. On the ground floor there was Miss Mybus. On the first floor (occupying both rooms) Mr. Barfield, an old bachelor, employed in a merchant’s office. On the second floor, in the front room, Mr. John Zebedee, the murdered man, and his wife. In the back room, Mr. Deluc; described as a cigar agent, and supposed to be a Creole gentleman from Martinique. In the front garret, Mr. and Mrs. Crosscapel. In the back garret, the cook and the housemaid. These were the inhabitants, regularly accounted for. I asked about the servants. “Both excellent characters,” says the landlady, “or they would not be in my service.”

We reached the second floor, and found the housemaid on the watch outside the door of the front room. Not as nice a woman, personally, as the cook, and sadly frightened of course. Her mistress had posted her, to give the alarm in the case of an outbreak on the part of Mrs. Zebedee, kept locked up in the room. My arrival relieved the housemaid of further responsibility. She ran downstairs to her fellow-servant in the kitchen.

I asked Mrs. Crosscapel how and when the alarm of the murder had been given.

“Soon after three this morning,” says she, “I was woke by the screams of Mrs. Zebedee. I found her out here on the landing, and Mr. Deluc, in great alarm, trying to quiet her. Sleeping in the next room he had only to open his door, when her screams woke him. ‘My dear John’s murdered! I am the miserable wretch — I did it in my sleep!’ She repeated these frantic words over and over again, until she dropped in a swoon. Mr. Deluc and I carried her back into the bedroom. We both thought the poor creature had been driven distracted by some dreadful dream. But when we got to the bedside — don’t ask me what we saw; the doctor has told you about it already. I was once a nurse in a hospital, and accustomed, as such, to horrid sights. It turned me cold and giddy, notwithstanding. As for Mr. Deluc, I thought
he
would have had a fainting fit next.”

Hearing this, I inquired if Mrs. Zebedee had said or done any strange things since she had been Mrs. Crosscapel’s lodger.

“You think she’s mad?” says the landlady. “And anybody would be of your mind, when a woman accuses herself of murdering her husband in her sleep. All I can say is that, up to this morning, a more quiet, sensible, well-behaved little person than Mrs. Zebedee I never met with. Only just married, mind, and as fond of her unfortunate husband as a woman could be. I should have called them a pattern couple, in their own line of life.”