Arthur Morrison - British Mystery Classics - Arthur Morrison Edition (Illustrated)

“You said you thought he saw the crime. How did you judge that?”

Hewitt smiled. “I think I’ll keep that little secret to myself for the present,” he said. “You shall know soon.”

“Very well,” Nettings replied, with resignation. “I suppose I mustn’t grumble if you don’t tell me everything. I feel too great a fool altogether over this case to see any farther than you show me.” And Inspector Nettings left on his search; while Martin Hewitt, as soon as he was alone, laughed joyously and slapped his thigh.

There was a cab-rank and shelter at the end of the street where Mr. Styles’ building stood, and early that evening a man approached it and hailed the cabmen and the waterman. Any one would have known the new-comer at once for a cabman taking a holiday. The brim of the hat, the bird’s-eye neckerchief, the immense coat-buttons, and, more than all, the rolling walk and the wrinkled trousers, marked him out distinctly.

“Watcheer!” he exclaimed, affably, with the self-possessed nod only possible to cabbies and ‘busmen. “I’m a-lookin’ for a bilker. I’m told one o’ the blokes off this rank carried ‘im last Saturday, and I want to know where he went. I ain’t ‘ad a chance o’ gettin’ ‘is address yet. Took a cab just as it got dark, I’m told. Tallish chap, muffled up a lot, in a long black overcoat. Any of ye seen ‘im?”

The cabbies looked at one another and shook their heads; it chanced that none of them had been on that particular rank at that time. But the waterman said: “‘Old on—I bet ‘e’s the bloke wot old Bill Stammers took. Yorkey was fust on the rank, but the bloke wouldn’t ‘ave a ‘ansom—wanted a four-wheeler, so old Bill took ‘im. Biggish chap in a long black coat, collar up an’ muffled thick; soft wide-awake ‘at, pulled over ‘is eyes; and he was in a ‘urry, too. Jumped in sharp as a weasel.”

“Didn’t see ‘is face, did ye?”

“No—not an inch of it; too much muffled. Couldn’t tell if he ‘ad a face.”

“Was his arm in a sling?”

“Ay, it looked so. Had it stuffed through the breast of his coat, like as though there might be a sling inside.”

“That’s ‘im. Any of ye tell me where I might run across old Bill Stammers? He’ll tell me where my precious bilker went to.”

As to this there was plenty of information, and in five minutes Martin Hewitt, who had become an unoccupied cabman for the occasion, was on his way to find old Bill Stammers. That respectable old man gave him full particulars as to the place in the East End where he had driven his muffled fare on Saturday, and Hewitt then begun an eighteen, or twenty hours’ search beyond Whitechapel.

At about three on Tuesday afternoon, as Nettings was in the act of leaving Bow Street Police Station, Hewitt drove up in a four-wheeler. Some prisoner appeared to be crouching low in the vehicle, but, leaving him to take care of himself, Hewitt hurried into the station and shook Nettings by the hand. “Well,” he said, “have you got the murderer of Rameau yet?”

“No,” Nettings growled. “Unless—well, Goujon’s under remand still, and, after all, I’ve been thinking that he may know something—”

“Pooh, nonsense!” Hewitt answered. “You’d better let him go. Now, I have got somebody.” Hewitt laughed and slapped the inspector’s shoulder. “I’ve got the man who carried Rameau’s body away!”

“The deuce you have! Where? Bring him in. We must have him—”

“All right, don’t be in a hurry; he won’t bolt.” And Hewitt stepped out to the cab and produced his prisoner, who, pulling his hat farther over his eyes, hurried furtively into the station. One hand was stowed in the breast of his long coat, and below the wide brim of his hat a small piece of white bandage could be seen; and, as he lifted his face, it was seen to be that of a negro.

“Inspector Nettings,” Hewitt said ceremoniously, “allow me to introduce Mr. César Rameau!”

Netting’s gasped.

“What!” he at length ejaculated. “What! You—you’re Rameau?”

The negro looked round nervously, and shrank farther from the door.

“Yes,” he said; “but please not so loud—please not loud. Zey may be near, and I’m ‘fraid.”

“You will certify, will you not,” asked Hewitt, with malicious glee, “not only that you were not murdered last Saturday by Victor Goujon, but that, in fact, you were not murdered at all? Also, that you carried your own body away in the usual fashion, on your own legs.”

“Yes, yes,” responded Rameau, looking haggardly about; “but is not zis—zis room publique? I should not be seen.”

“Nonsense!” replied Hewitt rather testily; “you exaggerate your danger and your own importance, and your enemies’ abilities as well. You’re safe enough.”

“I suppose, then,” Nettings remarked slowly, like a man on whose mind something vast was beginning to dawn, “I suppose—why, hang it, you must have just got up while that fool of a girl was screaming and fainting upstairs, and walked out. They say there’s nothing so hard as a nigger’s skull, and yours has certainly made a fool of me. But, then, somebody must have chopped you over the head; who was it?”

“My enemies—my great enemies—enemies politique. I am a great man”—this with a faint revival of vanity amid his fear—“a great man in my countree. Zey have great secret club-sieties to kill me—me and my fren’s; and one enemy coming in my rooms does zis—one, two”—he indicated wrist and head—“wiz a choppa.”

Rameau made the case plain to Nettings, so far as the actual circumstances of the assault on himself were concerned. A negro whom he had noticed near the place more than once during the previous day or two had attacked him suddenly in his rooms, dealing him two savage blows with a chopper. The first he had caught on his wrist, which was seriously damaged, as well as excruciatingly painful, but the second had taken effect on his head. His assailant had evidently gone away then, leaving him for dead; but, as a matter of fact, he was only stunned by the shock, and had, thanks to the adamantine thickness of the negro skull and the ill-direction of the chopper, only a very bad scalp-wound, the bone being no more than grazed. He had lain insensible for some time, and must have come to his senses soon after the housemaid had left the room. Terrified at the knowledge that his enemies had found him out, his only thought was to get away and hide himself. He hastily washed and tied up his head, enveloped himself in the biggest coat he could find, and let himself down into the basement by the coal-lift, for fear of observation. He waited in the basement of one of the adjoining buildings till dark and then got away in a cab, with the idea of hiding himself in the East End. He had had very little money with him on his flight, and it was by reason of this circumstance that Hewitt, when he found him, had prevailed on him to leave his hiding-place, since it would be impossible for him to touch any of the large sums of money in the keeping of his bank so long as he was supposed to be dead. With much difficulty, and the promise of ample police protection, he was at last convinced that it would be safe to declare himself and get his property, and then run away and hide wherever he pleased.

Nettings and Hewitt strolled off together for a few minutes and chatted, leaving the wretched Rameau to cower in a corner among several policemen.