The Silent House by Fergus Hume (ebook reader android .TXT) 📕

On being admitted again by Mrs. Kebby, and sending that ancient female to her Augean task of cleansing the house, Lucian descended to the basement in order to examine kitchen and cellar more particularly. If, as Diana stated, the ribbon had been knotted loosely about the hilt of the stiletto, it must have fallen off unnoticed by the assassin when, weapon in hand, he was retreating from the scene of crime.

"He must have come down here from the sitting-room," mused Denzil, as he stood in the cool, damp kitchen. "And—as the ribbon was found by Mrs. Kebby near yonder door—it is most probable that he left the kitchen by that passage for the cellar. Now it remains for me to find out how he made his exit from the cellar; and also I must look for the stiletto, which he possibly dropped in his flight, as he did the ribbon."

While thus soliloquising, Denzil lighted a candle which he had taken the precaution to bring with him for the purpose of making his underground explorations. Having thus provided himself with means to dispel the darkness, he stepped into the door and descended the stone stairs which led to the cellars.

At the foot of the steps he found himself in a passage running from the front to the back of the house, and forthwith turned to the right in order to reach the particular cellar, which was dug out in the manner of a cave under the back yard.

This, as Lucian ascertained by walking round, was faced with stone and had bins on all four sides for the storage of wine. Overhead there was a glass skylight, of which the glass was so dusty and dirty that only a few rays of light could struggle into the murky depths below. But what particularly attracted the attention of Denzil was a short wooden ladder lying on the stone pavement, and which probably was used to reach the wine in the upper bins.

"And I should not be surprised if it had been used for another purpose," murmured Lucian, glancing upward at the square aperture of the skylight.

It struck him as possible that a stranger could enter thereby and descend by the ladder. To test the truth of this he reared the ladder in the middle of the cellar so that its top rung rested against the lower edge of the square overhead. Ascending carefully—for the ladder was by no means stout—he pushed the glass frame upward and found that it yielded easily to a moderate amount of strength. Climbing up, step after step, Lucian arose through the aperture like a genie out of the earth, and soon found that he could jump easily out of the cellar into the yard.

"Good!" he exclaimed, much gratified by this discovery. "I now see how the assassin entered. No wonder the kitchen door was bolted and barred, and that no one was seen to visit Vrain by the front door. Any one who knew the position of that skylight could obtain admission easily, at any hour, by descending the ladder and passing through cellar and kitchen to the upper part of the house. So much is clear, but I must next discover how those who entered got into this yard."

And, indeed, there seemed no outlet, for the yard was enclosed on three sides by a fence of palings the height of a man, and rendered impervious to damp by a coating of tar; on the fourth side by the house itself. Only over the fence—which was no insuperable obstacle—could a stranger have gained access to the yard; and towards the fence opposite to the house Lucian walked. In it there was no gate, or opening of any kind, so it would appear that to come into the yard a stranger would need to climb over, a feat easily achieved by a moderately active man.

As Denzil examined this frail barrier his eye was caught by a fluttering object on the left—that is, the side in a line with the skylight. This he found was the scrap of a woman's veil of thin black gauze spotted with velvet. At once his thoughts reverted to the shadow of the woman on the blind, and the suspicions of Diana Vrain.

"Great heavens!" he thought, "can that doll of a Lydia be guilty, after all?"

As may be surmised, Lucian was considerably startled by the discovery of this important evidence so confirmative of Diana's suspicions. Yet the knowledge which Link had gained relative to Mrs. Vrain's remaining at Berwin Manor to keep Christmas seemed to contradict the fact; and he could by no means reconcile her absence with the presence on the fence of the fragment of gauze; still less with the supposition that she must have climbed over a tolerably difficult obstacle to enter the yard, let alone the necessity—by no means easy to a woman—of descending into the disused cellar by means of a shaky and fragile ladder.

"After all," thought Lucian, when he was seated that same evening at his dinner, "I am no more certain that the veil is the property of Mrs. Vrain than I am that she was the woman whose shadow I saw on the blind. Whosoever it was that gained entrance by passing over fence and through cellar, must have come across the yard belonging to the house facing the other road. Therefore, the person must be known to the owner of that house, and I must discover who the owner is. Miss Greeb will know."

Lucian made this last remark with the greatest confidence, as he was satisfied, from a long acquaintance with his landlady, that there was very little concerning her own neighbourhood of which she was ignorant. The result verified his belief, for when Miss Greeb came in to clear the table—a duty she invariably undertook so as to have a chance of conversing with her admired lodger—she was able to afford him the fullest information on the subject. The position of the house in question; the name of its owner; the character of its tenants; she was thoroughly well posted up in every item, and willingly imparted her knowledge with much detail and comment.

"No. 9 Jersey Street," said she, unhesitatingly; "that is the number of the house at the back of the haunted mansion, Mr. Denzil. I know it as well as I know my ten fingers."

"To whom does it belong?" asked Lucian.

"Mr. Peacock; he owns most of the property round about here, having bought up the land when the place was first built on. He's seventy years of age, you know, Mr. Denzil," continued Miss Greeb conversationally, "and rich!—Lord! I don't know how rich he is! Building houses cheap and letting them dear; he has made more out of that than in sanding his sugar and chicorying his coffee. He——"

"What is the name of the tenant?" interrupted Lucian, cutting short this rapid sketch of Peacock's life.

"Mrs. Bensusan, one of the largest women hereabouts."

"I don't quite understand."

"Fat, Mr. Denzil. She turns the scale at eighteen stone, and has pretty well broke every weighing machine in the place."

"What reputation has she, Miss Greeb?"

"Oh, pretty good," said the little woman, shrugging her shoulders, "though they do say she overcharges and underfeeds her lodgers."

"She keeps a boarding-house, then?"

"Well, she lets rooms," explained Miss Greeb in a very definite manner, "and those who live in them supply their own food, and pay for service and kitchen fire."

"Who is with her now?"

"No one," replied the landlady promptly. "She's had her bill up these three months. Her last lodger left about Christmas."

"What is his name—or her name?"

"Oh, it was a 'he,'" said Miss Greeb, smiling.

"Mrs. Bensusan prefers gentlemen, who are out of doors all day, to ladies muddling and meddling all day about the house. I must say I do, too, Mr. Denzil," ended the lady, with a fascinating glance.

"What is his name, Miss Greeb?" repeated Lucian, quite impervious to the hint.

"Let me see," said Miss Greeb, discomfited at the result of her failure. "A queer name that had to do with payments. Bill as the short for William. No, it wasn't that, although it does suggest an account. Quarterday? No. But it had something to do with quarter-days. Rent!" finished Miss Greeb triumphantly. "Rent, with a 'W' before it."

"W-r-e-n-t!" spelled Lucian.

"Yes. Wrent! Mr. Wrent. A strange name, Mr. Denzil—a kind of charade, as I may say. He was with Mrs. Bensusan six months; came to her house about the time Mr. Berwin hired No. 13."

"Very strange!" assented Lucian, to stop further comment. "What kind of a man was this Mr. Wrent?"

"I don't know. I never heard much about him," replied Miss Greeb regretfully. "May I ask why you want to know all this, Mr. Denzil?"

Lucian hesitated, as he rather dreaded the chattering tongue of his landlady, and did not wish his connection with the Vrain case to become public property in Geneva Square. Still, Miss Greeb was a valuable ally, if only for her wide acquaintance with the neighbourhood, its inhabitants, and their doings. Therefore, after a moment's reflection, he resolved to secure Miss Greeb as a coadjutor, and risk her excessive garrulity.

"Can you keep a secret, Miss Greeb?" he asked, with impressive solemnity.

Struck by his serious air, and at once on fire with curiosity to learn its reason, Miss Greeb loudly protested that she should sooner die than breathe a word of what her lodger was about to divulge. She hinted, with many a mysterious look and nod, that secrets endangering the domestic happiness of every family in the square were known to her, and appealed to the fact that such families still lived in harmony as a proof that she was to be trusted.

"Wild horses wouldn't drag out of me what I know!" cried Miss Greeb earnestly. "You can confide in me as you would in a"—she was about to say mother, but recollecting her juvenile looks, substituted the word "sister."

"Very good," said Lucian, explaining just as much as would serve his purpose. "Then I may tell you, Miss Greeb, that I suspect the assassin of Mr. Vrain entered through Mrs. Bensusan's house, and so got into the yard of No. 13."

"Lord!" cried Miss Greeb, taken by surprise. "You don't say, sir, that Mr. Wrent is a murdering villain, steeped in gore?"

"No! No!" replied Lucian, smiling at this highly-coloured description. "Do not jump to conclusions, Miss Greeb. So far as I am aware, this Mr. Wrent you speak of is innocent. Do you know Mrs. Bensusan and her house well?"

"I've visited both several times, Mr. Denzil."

"Well, then, tell me," continued the barrister, "is the house built with a full frontage like those in this square? I mean, to gain Mrs. Bensusan's back yard is it necessary to go through Mrs. Bensusan's house?"

"No," replied Miss Greeb, shutting her eyes to conjure up the image of her friend's premises. "You can go round the back through the side passage which leads in from Jersey Road."

"H'm!" said Lucian in a dissatisfied tone. "That complicates matters."

"How so, sir?" demanded the curious landlady.

"Never mind just now, Miss Greeb. Do you think you could draw me a plan of this passage of Mrs. Bensusan's house, and of No. 13, with the yards between?"

"I never could sketch," said Miss Greeb regretfully, "and I am no artist, Mr. Denzil, but I think I can do what you want."

"Here is a sheet of paper and a pencil. Will you sketch me the houses as clearly as you can?"

With much reflection and nibbling of the pencil,