PRESENTLY we shall follow Ben into No. 26 Jowle Street and endure with him (if we are still interested in his fate) the worst of his experiences. But for a while we will leave him to wait on the doorstep—as he himself was destined to wait—and enter the House of Happenings with others who had preceded him. With the Australian, for instance, who entered some fifteen hours earlier and who first aroused Ben’s curiosity as to what lay on the other side of the door.
The Australian’s own curiosity, it will be recalled, was inspired by the sight of a distressed girl who was leaving the house. The sight of this girl diverted him from the queer creature he was interviewing at No. 29, creating a more magnetic interest. ‘’E don’t waste no time!’ Ben had commented, but the comment had not been entirely just. The Australian appreciated pretty faces; he did not, however, spend his life chasing them. Otherwise he might have followed the distressed girl farther than the corner instead of changing his mind and returning to the door step she had just left.
He rang the bell. The person whose duty it was to answer bells was either asleep, deaf, dead, or unwilling. The Australian rang a second time, smiling rather ironically as he did so. Apparently bells were not popular in England. He had had to make five efforts, he recalled, before he had got any one to answer the bell of No. 29!
Twice was enough for No. 26, although when the door did open he again received no encouragement. Indeed, it is scarcely truthful to say that the door really opened at all. Something clicked, and the side of the door nearest the click receded a few inches, while in the grudging crack of space was faintly materialised a nose. Not a nice nose. A nose that gleamed palely, more like its own ghost than the reality, about four feet from the ground, its proximity to earth implying an anxiously bent body somewhere in the dimness behind it. Its shape was not as God had designed it, if God had ever designed it at all, which was doubtful. One side of the nose went in, and the other went out. It seemed to have grown against a heavy wind that had blown constantly from the left, billowing it, like washing on a breezy day, into a permanently curved fixture. But the blow that had really sent the nose out of the fairway was a blow of another sort.
‘Say, where did you learn to be so darned quick?’ asked the Australian.
‘What’s that?’ replied the nose.
‘See here,’ retorted the Australian. ‘Don’t people in this country ever answer anything but “What’s that?” I asked you where you’d learned your excessive speed? I suppose you know I had to ring twice?’
‘Oh! Did you?’ said the owner of the nose. ‘Well, you see, there ain’t no one in.’
‘I saw a lady go out, but isn’t there anybody else in the house?’
‘Lidy? Oh, yus, that’s right. But she don’t live ’ere.’
‘No?’
The nose wagged sideways.
‘Then may I ask who does?’ pursued the Australian.
‘I tell you, there’s nobody in,’ repeated the owner of the nose, and tried to close the door.
But the Australian anticipated the move, and inserted his boot.
‘Say, that sort of stuff won’t wash!’ he exclaimed, frowning. ‘How do you know I don’t want to leave a message or a card?’
‘Wot’s the message?’ grunted the other. ‘Or where’s the card?’
‘The message is that whoever does live here had better dismiss you for incompetence and impertinence, and—here is the card.’
He drew out a letter-case as he spoke, and presented a little piece of pasteboard. The nose advanced towards it. Thick lips materialised below the nose, and small, suspicious eyes above.
‘Jack ’Obart,’ mumbled the thick lips.
‘No, Hobart,’ corrected the Australian. ‘And now, if you don’t mind, I’m coming in!’
He shoved forward as he spoke, and the incompetence and the impertinence fell back, revealed completely now as a furtive, under-sized man.
‘’Ere!’ exclaimed the under-sized man indignantly. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I am anticipating your tardy courtesy, old son, by entering the hall of this Palace of Welcome, and taking a seat while you convey that card to your master, or mistress, or whoever runs you.’
‘But there ain’t nobody in,’ insisted the under-sized man again desperately. ‘I’ve told yer! We ain’t receiving visitors!’
‘I’m not a visitor,’ replied Hobart. ‘I’m the owner of this house.’
The information impressed the under-sized man. He stared at the Australian with startled eyes, and his whole attitude changed.
‘What—the boss?’ he murmured.
‘If a house owner is called the boss in this country, then I am the boss,’ nodded Hobart, smiling slightly; ‘but it’s the first I’ve heard of it. Say, how much longer are you going to stand there gaping? How do you know I don’t want to go to a film tonight?’
Then, suddenly, the Australian turned and glanced towards the staircase. An old man was descending.
The old man from the look of him, was seventy, but by the movement of him he was considerably younger. He came down the stairs at an agile pace, which decreased rather abruptly, however, the moment Hobart turned and saw him.
‘Good-evening,’ said the old man promptly. ‘What can I do for you?’
Released from the necessity of further argument, Hobart smiled good-naturedly.
‘Well, sir,’ he responded, ‘you can inform your servant here that I am a nice, law-abiding gentleman, and that it isn’t in the least necessary to tell me fibs. Not even pretty little white ones.’
‘Fibs?’ queried the old man.
‘He told me nobody was at home,’ the Australian pointed out. His pleasantness in no way interfered with his determination, and the old man was quicker to read the determination than his servant had been. ‘Was that really necessary?’
‘Since you are a nice, law-abiding gentleman,’ replied the old man, ‘I can’t think, that it was at all necessary. You can go, Flitt, I’ll speak to you later.’
The last five words were uttered with an underlying tenseness not lost upon Flitt, who disappeared furtively into the shadows. Then the old man continued:
‘I’m quite sure, sir, that you are nice and law-abiding, but may I know who else you are, besides?’
‘Why, certainly,’ answered the Australian. ‘My name is on a card your servant has taken away with him. Jack Hobart. And may I know, sir, who I am addressing?’
‘My name is Clitheroe.’
‘Thank you, Mr Clitheroe.’
‘And I am the tenant of this house.’
‘Then I’m tickled to meet you, because I am the owner of this house, and this is the first news I’ve had that the house is let.’
Mr Clitheroe advanced from the foot of the stairs, and regarded the visitor with increased interest.
‘Excuse me, Mr—Hobart, did you say?’ he observed. ‘But is this house really and truly yours?’
‘Sure thing!’
‘And you did not know—you say—that it was let to me?’
‘The pleasant knowledge has been withheld from me, Mr Clitheroe. So now I hope you’ll forgive me for calling on you.’
‘Of course,’ murmured the old man thoughtfully. ‘Naturally. But may I have a little more information?’
‘I reckon you may, sir. We’re both seeking it, aren’t we?’
‘Exactly. What I am really wondering, Mr Hobart, is this. How comes it that—’
‘Being the owner of this house, I don’t know more of its affairs?’ interposed Hobart.
‘You have taken the words from my mouth,’ smiled the old man.
‘Well, that’s easily explained, sir. I only landed in England today. Steamship Aristhenes. Left my luggage in a cloakroom—that what you call ’em here?—and came along to have a look at two bits of property an obliging grandparent left me some time ago—but which so far haven’t brought me in a penny. And there you are! All quite clear and simple, isn’t it?’
‘Two bits of property?’ queried Mr Clitheroe, who had followed the story with close attention.
‘Yes,’ answered Hobart. ‘Nos. 29 and 26. And, say, if you want to make me an offer for the pair don’t hesitate! I’ve a notion I’ll sell them cheap. But, meanwhile, there ought to be a spot of rent, you know. May I ask where it goes?’
‘Where?…Oh, you mean, who do I pay my rent to?’ said Mr Clitheroe. ‘Yes, of course. I settle with the agent through whom I took this house. By the way, did you say you had only arrived in England this morning?’
‘That’s right. Who’s the agent?’
‘But, I take it, this is not your first visit to England?’
‘Sure!’
‘Then you have no friends here? No relatives?’
Jack Hobart looked a trifle puzzled.
‘No, I haven’t,’ he answered, ‘though I don’t quite see what that has got to do with—’
‘I asked merely because I was wondering who was looking after your affairs,’ interposed Mr Clitheroe quickly. ‘Of course—if there’s no one here to interest themselves in your concerns—’
‘No one.’
Now Mr Clitheroe regarded his visitor more intently than ever. The visitor frowned. He wasn’t sure that he liked being regarded as intently as all this.
‘Say, is anything the matter here?’ he demanded, with sudden bluntness.
He was not quite sure why he asked the question. It might have been something in the old man’s atmosphere. It might have been something in the atmosphere of the house itself. Or it might have been the momentary appearance, on the stairs, of a hesitating and obviously curious figure. At a sign from Mr Clitheroe, the figure had vanished from sight as abruptly as it had appeared.
‘Matter?’ Mr Clitheroe observed, after a pause. ‘What makes you think anything is the matter?’
‘I didn’t say I thought there was anything the matter,’ retorted the Australian, fencing for no reason that he could definitely establish. ‘I asked if anything was?’
‘Dear me, I apologise,’ answered Mr Clitheroe. ‘How careless my phraseology is becoming! Let me amend the question. Why do you ask if anything is the matter?’
Jack Hobart shrugged his shoulders.
‘Not sure that I know,’ he admitted unwillingly. ‘P’r’aps a girl I saw leaving the house started me on the track.’
‘A girl?’
‘Yes. She seemed pretty upset, I thought.’
‘Pretty upset,’ murmured the old man. ‘H’m. Yes. She would be. She had—er—just been dismissed for—theft.’
‘What—that child?’ exclaimed Hobart, incredulously.
Mr Clitheroe shook his head sadly.
‘I fear you have little knowledge of human nature, Mr Hobart,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps human nature is different in your country? Canada, I think you said?’
‘I didn’t say anywhere,’ granted Hobart; ‘but it happens to be Australia.’
‘Oh Australia!…Well, perhaps in Australia pretty maids never disappoint one. But in England they can be terribly deceitful. That very girl you saw, for instance. I caught her in the act of taking five pounds from my pocket-book. I had left it on a table in my study. Never judge by faces, Mr Hobart. That girl whose face looked so innocent to you will spend most of her life in prison. The unprepossessing fellow who opened the door to you is a teetotaller and keeps a lame sister. Behind the squint may lie a warm heart, and behind the smile a disposition to murder, eh? Why, Mr Hobart, people have called me kindly, but how can you judge from my amiable countenance whether I may one day poison you or not—till the day dawns, eh, and you know me better?’ He laughed. ‘Or how do I know that, in spite of your own equally amiable countenance, you may not have come here with some unfriendly purpose—till I know you better? Eh?’
He laughed again. Jack Hobart did not join him. He wrenched the conversation back to a point from which it had strayed.
‘I’ve explained my purpose,’ he said shortly, ‘and I reckon it’ll be attained just as soon as you tell me the name of the agent to whom you pay your rent. It’s quite likely I shall be unfriendly to him!’
‘You will visit him?’
‘There won’t be any time wasted!’
‘Quite right. He appears to be a rascal.’
‘I’m asking the name of the rascal.’
‘His name. Yes. It is—Wainwright.’
‘Wainwright. Good. And does he pocket the rent?’
‘I assumed, till now, that he passed it on.’
‘Did he say who to?’
‘I believe I have the owner’s name—the alleged owner’s name—in my desk somewhere, but, to be truthful, it never interested me. Perhaps you would come into my study while I look? You must forgive me for having kept you standing so long. Dear me, I have been very discourteous! Yes, yes, and of course you must have a drink, too.’
‘I won’t trouble you as far as that, sir—’
‘Nonsense! Nonsense! If not for my sake, Mr Hobart, then for England’s. The memory of your first call at an English home must not be marred by an impression of inhospitality. This way, if you please!’
He opened a door.
Hobart hesitated. Once more, he could not understand his hesitation. He did not like Mr Clitheroe. That he told himself quite candidly. But if Mr Clitheroe were trying to be a good advertisement for England, then Mr Hobart must not make himself a bad advertisement for Australia. Therefore, the hesitation passed, and Hobart entered the room into which the old man had invited him.
Mr Clitheroe entered behind him, moved towards a desk, then suddenly paused, and snapped his fingers.
‘The drinks!’ he exclaimed. ‘Pleasure first, eh, Mr Hobart? I will fetch them!’
He turned and darted from the room, closing the door behind him. Alone, Jack Hobart frowned. He was wondering why the devil his host could not have rung?
A moment later, a new wonder disturbed him. Beneath the desk was a small cupboard, and one of the cupboard doors was half open. Clearly visible through the aperture was a decanter of whisky.
‘I’m damned!’ he muttered.
Impulsively, he swung round, and ran to the door. It was locked.