Benjamin Farjeon - Great Porter Square - A Mystery. Volume 1

On the calling of the case, the magistrate inquired if the accused man was still undefended, and the police replied that no one appeared for him. The answer was scarcely given when Mr. Goldberry (of the firm of Goldberry, Entwistle, and Pugh), rose and said that he was there to represent the accused.

Magistrate: Have you been instructed?

Mr. Goldberry: No, your worship. A couple of hours ago I endeavoured to confer with the prisoner, but the police refused me permission to see him.

Inspector Fleming explained that when Mr. Goldberry sought an interview with the prisoner, the prisoner was asked whether he wished to see him; his answer was that he wished to see no one.

Mr. Goldberry: Still, it cannot but be to the prejudice of the prisoner that he should be unrepresented, and I am here to watch the case in his interest.

Magistrate: Perhaps you had better confer with him now.

A few minutes were allowed for this purpose, at the end of which Mr. Goldberry said, although it was impossible to obtain anything like satisfaction from the accused, that he did not object to the appearance of a solicitor on his behalf. “He seems,” added Mr. Goldberry, “to be singularly unmindful as to what becomes of him.”

Magistrate: The case can proceed.

Mr. White Lush: Call Mrs. Preedy.

The witness presented herself, and was sworn.

Mr. White Lush: Your name is Anna Maria Preedy?

Witness: Yes, sir.

Mr. White Lush: You are a widow?

Witness: Yes, sir, worse luck. ’Is name was James, poor dear!

Mr. White Lush: You live at No. 118, Great Porter Square?

Witness: Yes, sir.

Mr. White Lush: How long have you occupied your house?

Witness: Four and twenty year, come Michaelmas.

Mr. White Lush: What kind of a house is yours?

Witness (with spirit): I defy you or any gentleman to say anythink agin its character.

Mr. White Lush: You keep a lodging-house?

Witness: I’m none the worse for that, I suppose?

Mr. White Lush: Answer my question. You keep a lodging-house?

Witness: I do, sir.

Mr. White Lush: Do you remember the night of the 9th of last month?

Witness: I’ve got reason to.

Mr. White Lush: What reason?

Witness: Two of my lodgers run away without paying their rent.

Mr. White Lush: That circumstance fixes the night in your mind?

Witness: It’d fix it in yours if you kep’ a lodging-house. (Laughter.)

Mr. White Lush: No doubt. There were other circumstances, independent of the running away of your lodgers, which serve to fix that night in your mind?

Witness: There was, sir.

Mr. White Lush: The night was Wednesday?

Witness: It were, sir.

Mr. White Lush: How and at what time did you become aware that your lodgers had run away?

Witness: When the last post come in. I got a letter, and the turn it gave me —

Mr. White Lush: That is immaterial. Have you the letter with you?

Witness: The way the perlice ’as been naggin’ at me for that letter —

Mr. White Lush: Have you the letter with you?

Witness: It’s lost, sir.

Mr. White Lush: Let me impress upon you that this letter might be an important link in the case. It is right and proper that the police should be anxious about it. Do you swear positively that you have lost it?

Witness: I do, sir.

Mr. White Lush: How did it happen?

Witness: It were a fortnight after the body was found in No. 119. I ’ad the letter in my ’and, and was lookin’ at it. I laid it down on the kitchen table, and went to answer the street door. When I come back the letter was gone.

Mr. White Lush: Was any person in the kitchen when you left it?

Witness: Not as I am aware on, sir. There was a ’igh wind on, and I left the kitchen door open, and when I come back I noticed a blaze in the fire, as though a bit of paper had been blown into it.

Mr. White Lush: Then your presumption is that the letter is burnt?

Witness: It air, sir.

Mr. White Lush: You have searched for it since?

Witness: I’ve ’unted ’igh and low, sir, without ever settin’ eyes on it.

MR. WHITE LUSH: You are quite confident in your own mind that the letter is no longer in existence.

Witness: I can’t swear to that, sir.

Mr. White Lush: You swear that you know nothing of it whatever?

Witness: Yes, sir.

Mr. White Lush: Now, what were the contents of the letter?

Witness: It were to inform me that the droring-rooms had bolted —

Magistrate: Bolted?

Witness: Run away, and wasn’t coming back, and that I might ’elp myself to what was in the trunk to pay my bill.

Mr. White Lush: Did you help yourself?

Witness: The meanness! I went up to the droring-room, and opened the trunk.

Mr. White Lush: Was it locked?

Witness: It were, sir.

Mr. White Lush: How did you open it?

Witness: With a poker.

Mr. White Lush: What did you find in it?

Witness: Bricks.

Mr. White Lush: Nothing else?

Witness: Not a blessed thing.

Mr. White Lush: What occurred then?

Witness: I were overcome with a ’orrid suspicion.

Mr. White Lush: Concerning what?

Witness: My second floorer.

Magistrate: Is that a poetical image, Mr. Lush?

Mr. White Lush (smiling): I really cannot say. This is a case with very little poetry in it. (To witness): Your second floorer? Do you mean your tenant on the second floor?

Witness: That were my meaning, sir.

Mr. White Lush: And acting on your horrid suspicion, you —

Witness: Run up stairs as fast as my legs would carry me.

Mr. White Lush: What did you discover? That your second floorer had run away?

Witness (very solemnly): He ’ad, sir.

Mr. White Lush: Did you open his trunk?

Witness: I did, sir.

Magistrate: With your universal key – the poker?

Witness: Yes, sir.

Mr. White Lush: That trunk, surely, was not also full of bricks?

Witness: I am sorry to inform you, sir, it were.

Magistrate: A singular coincidence.

Mr. White Lush: The witness’s two lodgers were evidently regular bricks. (Great laughter.) Were your drawing rooms and your second floorer on terms of intimacy?

Witness: Not as I was aware on, sir.

Mr. White Lush: What did you do then?

Witness: I went out to speak to a neighbour.

Mr. White Lush: To tell her of your misfortunes?

Witness: Yes, sir.

Mr. White Lush: At what time did you return to your house?

Witness: It were eleven o’clock, sir – striking as I opened the door. I stood on the steps, and counted the strokes: One – Two – Three —

Mr. White Lush: That will do. We will imagine the clock has struck. While you were out, did you observe anything unusual in the next house, No. 119?

Witness: Nothink, sir.

Mr. White Lush: You saw no strangers prowling about?

Witness: I did not, sir. Somebody pushed agin me —

Mr. White Lush: Yes?

Witness: It were Mr. Simpson, dining room, three doors off, in his usual condition. He always comes ’ome so.

Mr. White Lush: Did he speak to you?

Witness: He growled at me.

Mr. White Lush: What did you do then?

Witness: I went down to the kitchen, and fell into a doze.

Mr. White Lush: For how long did you doze?

Witness: I can’t rightly say, sir. About arf-an-hour, perhaps.

Mr. White Lush: Was there a candle alight in the kitchen when you fell asleep?

Witness: Yes, sir.

Mr. White Lush: Was it a whole candle?

Witness: No, sir, it were arf burnt down.

Mr. White Lush: What kind of candles do you burn in your kitchen?

Witness: Taller dips, sir – twelves.

Mr. White Lush: For about how long will one of these tallow dips burn?