Post Haste by Robert Michael Ballantyne (free reads .txt) 📕

Sir James Clubley, Baronet, were roused into action.

"Dear me! how strange!" said Sir James to himself, on reading the letter. "This unaccountable silence is explained at last. Poor fellow, I have judged him hastily. Come! I'll go find him out."

But this resolve was more easily made than carried into effect. At the hotel from which the letter had been dated nothing was known of the missing youth except that he had departed long long ago, leaving as his future address the name of a bird-stuffer, which name had unfortunately been mislaid--not lost. Oh no--only mislaid! On further inquiry, however, there was a certain undersized, plain-looking, and rather despised chamber-maid who retained a lively and grateful recollection of Mr Aspel, in consequence of his having given her an unexpectedly large tip at parting, coupled with a few slight but kindly made inquiries as to her welfare, which seemed to imply that he regarded her as a human being. She remembered distinctly his telling her one evening that if any one should call for him in his absence he was to be found at the residence of a lady in Cat Street, Pimlico, but for the life of her she couldn't remember the number, though she thought it must have been number nine, for she remembered having connected it in her mind with the well-known lives of a cat.

"Cat Street! Strange name--very!" said Sir James. "Are you sure it was Cat Street?"

"Well, I ain't quite sure, sir," replied the little plain one, with an inquiring frown at the chandelier, "but I know it 'ad somethink to do with cats. P'r'aps it was Mew Street; but I'm _quite_ sure it was Pimlico."

"And the lady's name?"

"Well, sir, I ain't sure of that neither. It was somethink queer, I know, but then there's a-many queer names in London--ain't, there, sir?"

Sir James admitted that there were, and advised her to reflect on a few of them.

The little plain one did reflect--with the aid of the chandelier--and came to the sudden conviction that the lady's name had to do with flowers. "Not roses--no, nor yet violets," she said, with an air of intense mental application, for the maiden's memory was largely dependent on association of ideas; "it might 'ave been marigolds, though it don't seem likely. Stay, was it water--?--Oh! it was lilies! Yes, I 'ave it now: Miss Lilies-somethink."

"Think again, now," said the Baronet, "everything depends on the `something,' for Miss Lilies is not so extravagantly queer as you seem to think her name was."

"That's true, sir," said the perplexed maid, with a last appealing gaze at the chandelier, and beginning with the first letter of the alphabet-- Miss Lilies A-- Lilies B-- Lilies C--, etcetera, until she came to K. "That's it now. I 'ave it _almost_. It 'ad to do with lots of lilies, I'm quite sure--quantities, it must 'ave been."

On Sir James suggesting that quantities did not begin with a K the little plain one's feelings were slightly hurt, and she declined to go any further into the question. Sir James was therefore obliged to rest content with what he had learned, and continued his search in Pimlico. There he spent several hours in playing, with small shopkeepers and policemen, a game somewhat analogous to that which is usually commenced with the words "Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?" The result was that eventually he reached Number 9 Purr Street, and found himself in the presence of Miss Lillycrop.

That lady, however, damped his rising hopes by saying that she did not know where George Aspel was to be found, and that he had suddenly disappeared--to her intense regret--from the bird-warehouse in which he had held a situation. It belonged to the brothers Blurt, whose address she gave to her visitor.

Little Tottie Bones, who had heard the conversation through the open parlour door, could have told where Aspel was to be found, but the promise made to her father sealed her lips; besides, particular inquiries after any one were so suggestive to her of policemen, and being "took," that she had a double motive to silence.

Mr Enoch Blurt could throw no light on the subject, but he could, and did, add to Sir James's increasing knowledge of the youth's reported dissipation, and sympathised with him strongly in his desire to find out Aspel's whereabouts. Moreover, he directed him to the General Post-Office, where a youth named Maylands, a letter-sorter--who had formerly been a telegraph message-boy,--and an intimate friend of Aspel, was to be found, and might be able to give some information about him, though he (Mr Blurt) feared not.

Phil Maylands could only say that he had never ceased to make inquiries after his friend, but hitherto without success, and that he meant to continue his inquiries until he should find him.

Sir James Clubley therefore returned in a state of dejection to the sympathetic Miss Lillycrop, who gave him a note of introduction to a detective--the grave man in grey,--a particular friend and ally of her own, with whom she had scraped acquaintance during one of her many pilgrimages of love and mercy among the poor.

To the man in grey Sir James committed his case, and left him to work it out.

Now, the way of a detective is a mysterious way. Far be it from us to presume to point it out, or elucidate or expound it in any degree. We can only give a vague, incomplete, it may be even incorrect, view of what the man in grey did and achieved, nevertheless we are bound to record what we know as to this officer's proceedings, inasmuch as they have to do with the thread of our narrative.

It may be that other motives, besides those connected with George Aspel, induced the man in grey to visit the General Post-Office, but we do not certainly know. It is quite possible that a whole host of subsidiary and incidental cases on hand might have induced him to take up the Post-Office like a huge stone, wherewith to knock down innumerable birds at one and the same throw; we cannot tell. The brain of a detective must be essentially different from the brains of ordinary men. His powers of perception--we might add, of conception, reception, deception, and particularly of interception--are marvellous. They are altogether too high for us. How then can we be expected to explain why it was that, on arriving at the Post-Office, the man in grey, instead of asking eagerly for George Aspel at the Inquiry Office, or the Returned Letter Office, or the _poste restante_, as any sane man would have done, began to put careless and apparently unmeaning questions about little dogs, and to manifest a desire to be shown the chief points of interest in the basement of St. Martin's-le-Grand?

In the gratifying of his desires the man in grey experienced no difficulty. The staff of the Post-Office is unvaryingly polite and obliging to the public. An order was procured, and he soon found himself with a guide traversing the mysterious regions underneath the splendid new building where the great work of postal telegraphy is carried on.

While his conductor led him through the labyrinthine passages in which a stranger would infallibly have lost his way, he explained the various objects of interest--especially pointing out the racks where thousands on thousands of old telegrams are kept, for a short time, for reference in case of dispute, and then destroyed. He found the man in grey so intelligent and sympathetic that he quite took a fancy to him.

"Do you happen to remember," asked the detective, in a quiet way, during a pause in his companion's remarks, "anything about a mad dog taking refuge in this basement some time ago--a small poodle I think it was-- which disappeared in some mysterious way?"

The conductor had heard a rumour of such an event, but had been ill and off duty at the time, and could give him no details.

"This," said he, opening a door, "is the Battery Room, where the electricity is generated for the instruments above.--Allow me to introduce you to the Battery Inspector."

The man in grey bowed to the Inspector, who was a tall, powerful man, quite fit, apparently, to take charge of a battery of horse artillery if need were.

"A singular place," remarked the detective, looking sharply round the large room, whose dimensions were partially concealed, however, by the rows of shelving which completely filled it from floor to ceiling.

"Somewhat curious," assented the Inspector; "you see our batteries require a good deal of shelving. All put together, there is in this room about three miles of shelving, completely filled, as you see, with about 22,000 cells or jars. The electricity is generated in these jars. They contain carbon and zinc plates in a solution of bichromate of potash and sulphuric acid and water. We fill them up once every two weeks, and renew the plates occasionally. There is a deal of sulphate of copper used up here, sir, in creating electricity--about six tons in the year. Pure copper accumulates on the plates in the operation, but the zinc wears away."

The detective expressed real astonishment and interest in all this, and much more that the Inspector told him.

"Poisonous stuff in your jars, I should fancy?" he inquired.

"Rather," replied the Inspector.

"Does your door ever stand open?" asked the detective.

"Sometimes," said the other, with a look of slight surprise.

"You never received a visit down here from a mad dog, did you?" asked the man in grey.

"Never!"

"I only ask the question," continued the other, in a careless tone, "because I once read in the newspapers of a poodle being chased into the Post-Office and never heard of again. It occurred to me that poison might account for it.--A curious-looking thing here; what is it?"

He had come to a part of the Battery Room where there was a large frame or case of dark wood, the surface of which was covered with innumerable brass knobs or buttons, which were coupled together by wires.

"That is our Battery Test-Box," explained the Inspector. "There are four thousand wires connected with it--two thousand going to the instruments up-stairs, and two thousand connected with the battery-jars. When I complete the circuit by connecting any couple of these buttons, the influence of the current is at once perceived."

He took a piece of charcoal, as he spoke, and brought it into contact with two of the knobs. The result was to convert the coal instantly into an intense electric light of dazzling beauty. The point of an ordinary lead pencil applied in the same way became equally brilliant.

"That must be a powerful battery," remarked the detective.

The Inspector smilingly took two handles from a neighbouring shelf and held them out to his visitor.

"Lay hold of these," he said, "and you will feel its powers."

The detective did as directed, and received a shock which caused him to fling down the handles with great promptitude and violence. He was too self-possessed a man, however, to seem put out.

"Strong!" he said, with a short laugh; "remarkably strong and effective."

"Yes," assented the Inspector, "it _is_ pretty powerful, and it requires to be so, for it does heavy work and travels a considerable distance. The greater the distance, you know, the greater the