CHAPTER XVIII

In London town

Goodbourne Fairlie, private investigator, studied thoughtfully the narrow brass-railed cellar stairs going down off the sidewalk, just off of Oxford Circus, London. It was three o’clock in the afternoon—of June the 11th; for five hectic days now had he been running down building-charladies named “Mary”—only to come a cropper on all of them, when each proved not to be the “Mary” he wanted. Indeed, there were now but two leads left. The one threading out from this cellar pub, and the other in or around the old building in Theobald’s Road.

The wooden sign hanging over the top of the down-going stairs showed a cerulean-blue porcupine-snouted animal painted against a bright yellow background, and with, underneath, black letters proclaiming:

THE BLUE BOAR INN

(The Original Blue Boar Inn Stood Here)

Troubledly, he wondered whether he would be received down here as the newspaperman he was supposed to be, with his soft-brimmed black felt hat, his carelessly-tied Windsor tie, his dark tweed suit, and his forty-three years of dignity even to his wide-set grey eyes; or as the “blinkin’, bloody snooper” he’d been called late last night in a Limehouse pub, while running down one of the Marys.

But, shrugging his shoulders philosophically, he went down the stairs.

The Blue Boar, at the bottom thereof, was certainly the narrowest place of its kind he had ever seen—so narrow, indeed, that it possessed just enough width to house a specially-cut-down bar along its left wall, and to afford any customers facing the bar to thread in and past each other on their way to or from the door. The place was empty except for the bartender, of course, a checker-waistcoated man with wide-flung handlebar moustache, and black sleeky hair. He mopped methodically away at his bar, framed against the usual long line of labelled liquor bottles and shining glassware, terminating at each end in two most amazing pyramids of typical earthenware gingerbeer receptacles defying the very Law of Gravity itself. Across the bar mirror was pasted a sign that read:

TODAY’S SPECIAL

Circus cocktail is. 6d.

Fairlie stepped up to the bar.

“Yes—sir?” said the moustached man, “and wo’t’ll it be?”

“A thimble of port, I think. Oh, by the way, have you, by sheerest remote chance, Cockburn’s Fine Old?”

“That we ’ave, sir. A very nice drink too, sir—and very hard to get in Town, sir.”

The wearer of the checkered waistcoat swung forth a stubby rich red bottle, and a small glass. Poured the latter neatly to the brim. And replaced the bottle lovingly, with a reverent pat on its wooden head.

“That’ll be two shillings for Cockburn’s, sir.”

Fairlie was all ready, without any argument, shoving over the two bright coins.

“To London,” he said, raising his glass. And took a generous swallow.

“Stranger in Town, sir?” commented the barkeeper. “If you want any information about the Old Town, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Well, yes, there is,” ventured Fairlie. “Well…since you’re willing, this fine day, to hand out information, did you ever sell a bottle of Cockburn’s Fine Old for—as a birthday present?”

The bartender eyed Fairlie suspiciously.

“And why would you want to know, sir?”

“Come, come, my friend! Is there anything particularly suspicious in a man asking if you ever sold a bottle of Cockburn’s Fine Old for—or as—a birthday present?”

“In this business, sir, we don’t usually gaff on what customers buy—or do for that matter.”

“Maybe,” said Fairlie, “if I tell you exactly why I asked, you will know something?”

“You could try,” said the other, half-challengingly, but half-invitingly. “But as I said, we don’t think it good business to give the low-down on customers. I’m a right bloke, believe you me, but h’I down’t put h’anybody ber’ind bars nor—”

“Fair enough. Well. I’m running down a London charwoman—office building charwoman—named Mary.”

“And why would you be so interested in a char—knocking off the boss’s port?”

“No, no—something—ah—something touching on an estate—in America. She has a small bit of essential information: the name of a town. I’ve run down charladies no end—but they’re not the ones—”

“Then why you come ’ere?”

“Because a charwoman whom I did talk to, merely nicknamed Mary, remembers talking recently to another charwoman at a charwoman’s ball or something, actually named Mary—and about port—and this latter Mary saying one could get Cockburn’s Fine Old at a bar off Oxford Circus—off of which she herself worked, she said—did, in fact, pick up a bottle there, as a birthday present for a man she did special work for in the building where she did work.”

“And—”

“That’s all! Here I am. There are two bars off Oxford Circus. You’re one of them. But you handle—the stuff. So you it must have been who sold the gift bottle. So—well be open with me, will you? Did you sell one recently to a charwoman working in this vicinity—and did she tell you anything by which I might—”

“Listen, my friend, I don’t ask people what they do when they buy a bottle—so I wouldn’t—”

“No, of course not. But did you sell a bottle—perhaps for a gift? If you did, I can comb office buildings hereabout till—”

“—the cows come ’ome, eh? Well, I think you’re on the up and up. I did sell such a bottle. About three weeks ago. Oh, she looked like a blinkin’ char, all right. She said it was for her boss—though she called ’im a gentleman!—she did special work for. And when I asked did he ever get it here himself, she said no—’e’s a cripple, like—with a h’office in h’about the h’oldest buildin’ h’off th’ Circus.’”

Goodbourne Fairlie stood stroking his chin.

“‘About the oldest building—off the Circus,’ eh? And with four roads coming into Oxford Circus, to boot? We-ell, that’s a lead. Via many radii! Maybe, however, by going upstairs and staring at the Circus, I can catch—by investigator’s ‘hunch’—yes, investigator’s hunch!—the exact street to take.” He drew a card out of his coat-pocket. “There’s my name. If ever you need a private investigator, I’ll pay you back for your help today—in my own coin.”

The bartender seized it avidly.

“Thanks, sir. I might need you yet—if I get married, and my wife starts runnin’ around with a sailor or Yank.”

Goodbourne Fairlie smiled tolerantly, turned, and trudged back on upstairs again.

Where, once upstairs, he moved diagonally over the broad sidewalk till he stood on the kerb facing Oxford Circus itself, a little off the line of pedestrians, however, and waited for that “investigator’s hunch” as to which, of the many streets going in and out of Oxford Circus, might hold his putative goal.

Across the way, on a smoke- and age-blackened three-story building that had safely escaped the blitz, a giant electric sign, not just now lighted, to be sure, but dozens of yards wide, and many deep, and reading just BOVRIL, gazed down on the so-busy corner. Along which—at least where Fairlie stood—sandwichmen advertising restaurants purveying cold joints, and theatres purveying “revues” strolled along, seedy bent old men, all.

All right then. A street at a time! And start now. With the one he was on. After which—

He had travelled only about a hundred feet, when he stopped short where a stone arched entranceway, no wider than about four feet, and showing letters chiselled about in its masonry, marked a narrow four-story building black with time and weather. And quite lost between two new and modern spick-and-span six-story buildings of orange brick.

“From the date on this,” he commented, “it might—”

For the letters chiselled on the arch read:

B Y T H E S E A

1850

He turned in.

It had no lift, as might have been expected of a building now over a century old; but there was a stone balustraded stairway just inside, near the door, with stone steps. Down it was coming a telegraph boy who evidently covered this district.

Fairlie stopped him.

“Listen, m’ lad, do you know of any occupant of this building—who’s crippled? Doesn’t get about—and all?”

“Cert’n, sir, Occ’pant o’ No. 36. Old Mr. Creedybridge. Conf’dential Invest’gator.”

“Confidential—investi—well, well!—when good fellows get together. Thirty-six, eh?”

He tendered the messenger a shilling, and the latter took it with assurance on his young face that he’d done nothing wrong in rendering such information.

Fairlie turned up the stairway. One flight. Two flights. Now at the third floor, he went down the soft-wood floored corridor which, lighted by the flame of a much larger hanging gas tip, revealed itself to his gaze. Past several of the solid-wooden doors fronting it each side he proceeded, scanning, as he passed each, the white porcelain numbers tacked to it near its top, and stood at last before one numbered in like manner. On this, at shoulder height, was a huge saucer-sized polished brass pushbell, and below the bell was painted:

SAMUEL CREEDYBRIDGE

CONFIDENTIAL INVESTIGATION

He rang the big bell. Which proved to be mechanical, and not electrical, for it gave forth a single hollow “bong”.

He heard something stirring within. Whiningly, like wheels on unoiled axles. And at length the door opened.

An old man, in a faded blue dressing-gown with a gold cord, and seated in a wheel-chair, filled the opening. His beard, short and neatly trimmed, was snow-white. As was his hair. His brown eyes, back of square silver spectacles, were kindly, tolerant, long-understanding.

“Yes, sir?” he inquired. “What can I do for you?”

“I’d like to talk to you a few minutes, Mr. Creedybridge—if I might?”

“Why—of course—but—but who are you?”

Fairlie extended one of his cards. The other took it. Examined it.

“Well—well—well! Two investigators meet, eh—across the threshold—of thirty-six? Come in, sir. Come right in.”

Fairlie did so. As the wheel-chair maneuvered itself, though with considerable difficulty because of its cumbersomeness and unwieldiness, aside to allow him. Found himself in a definitely working-office of some sort. A windowless wood-floored place, lighted most generously, however, by a single high-powered gas-mantle light suspended from the ceiling, and with practically all of its wall space covered by old-fashioned drawer cabinets, with, above them, etchings of old, old London—that London in which people actually resided on London Bridge itself! A section of wall not thus covered, to the left of the room, held a fireplace, with polished brass and irons out in front of it, and filled with logs and coal in readiness for the coming winter, and, on the wall just above it, an ancient square wooden clock with brass weights and free-swinging pendulum; while a narrower space, to the right, comprising a niche between two cabinets, held a movable desk, on high rubber-tyred wheels, carrying an old-fashioned lift-carriage typewriter.

Most curious accoutrement of the room, perhaps, was a taut steel wire, stretched across it just above head level, by steel hooks at either end, though in such wise, no doubt, that its slope could be gently altered, at either end, and from left to right, or from right to left, and carrying a travelling pulley-wheel and suspended undergear from which latter hung a wire basket carrying a telephone, the long long flexible cord of which was draped loosely, helix-like, about the suspending wire. A single comfortable-looking leather-seated visitor’s chair, drawn up now against one of the cabinets, suggested mutely how few, as a rule—at one time, that is—were the persons who held consultation here. While the utterly cryptic tickets on the countless drawers suggested, in turn, how confidential were such papers or other items as had to be filed here. Indeed, a really modern fire- and burglar-proof safe over in one corner proclaimed that findings intended, in this little business, to be kept secret till delivery, were so kept—till delivery! An arched open doorway in the wall opposite, with drawn-aside grey drapes, showed a most cheerfully flower-carpeted room, with big canopied walnut bed, looking out on some street, or perhaps inner courtyard, a room which Fairlie could not know today, but was destined some day to know, this man, fifty long years a tenant in this building, and today its oldest one, was allowed to possess and reside in because of his disability.

Samuel Creedybridge had now closed the door. It locked automatically, with resounding click, as he shoved it to, thanks to a powerful spring-lock mechanism now showing on its inside. And looking up from his sitting position, the aged man was surveying his visitor.

“I do trust,” he said, a bit dubiously, “that you haven’t come here today, hearing of me—that is, that I do confidential investigation in London for estates and whatnot—to be my—my run-about man? In short—my legs? For I have a nephew just now, Fellowday Vawcliffe, who functions as such. And—”

“Thank you, no,” said Fairlie. “I keep pretty busy on my own legs—running down commissions of my own.”

“But don’t tell me,” said the other, “that one of your lines of investigation crosses—one of mine?”

“Well—not exactly. It’s—it’s difficult to explain.”

“Is it so? Well drag over that chair, my friend, so that I won’t have to bend my so-dashed stiff neck upward—as right now I’m having to do.”

“Righto,” Fairlie hastened to say. “At once.”

And setting his hat off to one side, on the desk, did at once draw over the leather-seated chair the older man had indicated.

And Samuel Creedybridge, edging his wheel-chair as close as possible, looked over his strange caller puzzledly.

“I do hope,” he now said warningly, “that you’re not here to try and extract something out of me—that relates to this business—and is therefore one hundred per cent, confidential? For, believe me, if it involved your whole commission, I would not be able to prize loose.”

“That, sir, I believe.”

“Well—what is it—I can do?”

“Well, it’s a long story. From the point of view of distances, that is. For it centers in America. And reaches here in London, to a number of women of name so like that—”

“We-ell—this sounds int’resting indeed. But perhaps I’d better warn you that you may be interrupted almost any time by so-called Wapping Mary, the building’s charwoman here, who will want to ascertain from me whether—but I’ll send her about her work unless—unless perchance, sir, you are interested in odd characters. In which ca—are you?”

“And—how!” said Fairlie, with true American fervour. “With respect to one—Wapping Mary!”

“Well,” said the other man, “then you’ll be interested in her. Since she’s a most unusual character, to say the least, in view of the simple fact that—yes, indeed!—somewhat unusual, I must say. Since—oh, her name? Oh, just derived from our weird East End slum region where she lives—Wapping it still is, I trust?—at least it used to be down the Thames between the London docks and the then-so-called Pool—”

Fairlie nodded, confirming that all was today as it had been years before.

“—where Jack the Ripper operated decades ago, did he not?”

Fairlie nodded again.

“Thus Wapping Mary. Who has—but all right, let me hear your facts. Emanating in, you say, America? And reaching over here to—”

“Well,” explained Fairlie, “as I did start to say, they emanate conclusively in America. A young fellow there whose occupation is that of a circus driver has reason to hope—to believe—that he may be another man. Which he fervently hopes to be the case. For he loves a girl who, otherwise, would be his sister. And, alas, she him. But all he knows about it is that—”

But now there sounded forth hollowly in the room three slowly-repeated knocks on the heavy door. Once, twice, thrice!

“No, Mr. Fairlie,” smiled the old man reassuringly. “Not the Knock of Doom—nor the Grim Reaper—nor anything like it. But the—just between you and me—probably the most unusual charwoman—in all London. Yes, this Wapping Mary, the woman for this particular building, whom I told you very briefly about, and, I’m sorry to say, my most valuable employee. Since, for but three shillings per day, she does for me just about everything in the world I need done—but you shall see. So much, really. Do you mind—opening yon door?”