Читать книгу The Yellow Hunchback - Fergus Hume - Страница 8

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At first those within the room took the figure which loomed up suddenly behind the hunchback to be that of a man, but a second glance at its gaudy skirts showed that it could only be that of a woman. The lady in question bulked a veritable giantess, over six feet in height and stout in proportion, with a large, full-moon face. At one time this must have been handsome, but a network of wrinkles covered the smooth texture of the skin, and wind, rain, sun and fogs had spoilt the complexion. The mouth of this extraordinary person was hard, and drooped at the corners, to indicate a superlatively bad temper. She also had searing black eyes, aggressive and unwinking, and rough quantities of coarse, black hair, scarcely touched with grey, although she was by no means young.

“Miss Tudor-Stuart, of the Principal London Theatres,” announced the Amazon, in capital letters. No one answered, but the eyes of all wandered from the speaker to her tiny companion. Dwarf and giantess, strangely garbed, pathetically lean, they looked a queer couple, and quite alien to their surroundings.

Miss Tudor-Stuart, as she called herself, was arrayed in a bright green skirt, made short so as to show neat brown shoes and open-work stockings quite unsuited to the severe December weather. She wore an old scarlet jacket, probably the cast-off wear of a soldier, and this was bound with a brown leather belt. To add to the military looks of the jacket, several medals were displayed on the ample bosom of the wearer. The lady also wore white kid gloves, decidedly dirty, a pair of ear-rings set with turquoise stones, innumerable rings, and bangles and necklaces and cheap jewelled combs. Carrying herself very erect, with her head flung back and her dark eyes snapping fire, she marched into the centre of the drawing-room, driving before her the odd little man in yellow. Behind stole, with the step of a cat, a slim, red-haired girl, freckled-faced, white-faced, with greenish eyes, and a humble, fawning manner. The dwarf himself, but that he was dressed in his seaman’s rough-weather costume, looked exactly like the little creature who had but a few hours before been safely sealed in the family vault. The looks of the trio were so uncanny, and their appearance was so sudden, that every one gasped and silently stared. Mrs. Berrow was the first to recover her tongue, and she addressed herself to no one in particular. “Who are these creatures?” demanded the mistress of the house.

“Creature yourself,” snapped Miss Tudor-Stuart, with the fierceness of a grenadier. “Don’t you insult one who has been the favourite of the West End, and who has known dukes and earls and baronets by the dozen.”

“What do you want?” asked Clyde, and signing to the angry Mrs. Berrow to hold her somewhat rash tongue. It was useless to provoke so gigantic a female to show her physical strength, and she did not appear to possess much self-control.

“The money that Evan has left to his cousin,” retorted Miss Tudor-Stuart, with a defiant air.

“Cousin!” cried Mrs. Berrow, the blood suddenly leaving her cheeks, in spite of her anger. “Evan had no cousin.”

“What do you call this?” said the Amazon, and pushed forward the timid, unwilling dwarf, who shifted uneasily from one leg to the other.

“I should say it was Evan Berrow returned to life,” murmured Alice, amazed by the resemblance to the dead. Then, remembering what Rupert had said, added, aloud: “Are you not the yellow hunchback?”

“Don’t you call him names, miss,” growled the giantess. “Ben, find a seat for yourself. I’ll have this,” and she dropped into the most comfortable armchair which was within reach. “Ruth,” she nodded to the freckled girl, who watched the scene through the down-drooping, white eyelids over observant emerald eyes, “stand behind me. Mamma is going to see this thing through.”

“Where are the servants?” said Mrs. Berrow becoming red again, and quite taken aback by the extraordinary behaviour of this queer female. “I protest—”

“Protest as much as you like,” snapped the ogress, and reaching forward she caught the dwarf by the scruff of the neck, to drop him into a near chair. There he sat dangling a pair of helpless legs, and flushing painfully. “Now,” added Miss Tudor-Stuart, crossing her long legs in a gentlemanly way, “do justice, Mr. Lawyer.”

“The police should be called in,” said Captain Tait, indignantly, and examining the trio through his eye-glass.

Miss Tudor-Stuart flung a disdainful glance at him over the shoulder of her military coat. “To arrest you?” she queried. “Don’t be alarmed; you’ll be arrested soon enough.”

“What does the woman mean?” asked the angry Captain, fiercely.

“What, indeed?” was the enigmatic reply. “Ben, state your case, and make no mistake, or I’ll take the skin off you.”

The dwarf shot an angry glance at the maker of this polite speech, and winced under the direct gaze of Alice Marvel. All the same, he obeyed the Amazon’s instructions, and rose to speak. Mrs. Berrow, who had been talking rapidly to the lawyer, turned towards the group of amazed and amused servants at the door, and waved her hand. “Turn that woman out,” she commanded.

Miss Tudor-Stuart sent one fiery glance at the first person who moved, and he immediately retreated, with the look of a man who had been asked to shift a bulldog. Then she turned her head, and stared Mrs. Berrow up and down. “Here I am, and here I stay, my good lady,” she said, coolly, “until I know what money has been left to me and Ben.”

“What claim have you?” began Mason Clyde, when the large lady cut him short by nodding towards the hunchback.

“State your case, Ben,” she said, vigorously. “When you fail, mamma will come in.”

Again the dwarf essayed to speak, and again Mrs. Berrow interrupted, sharply. “Worthing,” she cried to the butler, “you had no right to allow these creatures in.”

“Keep that false hair of yours on, ma’am,” said Miss Tudor-Stuart, aggravatingly, “and don’t blame the flunkey for what he didn’t do. All the servants were in this room, and we found the hall door open. So we walked in, and we sat down, and we don’t move till mamma, which is me, my dear, gives the word. And that won’t be, in spite of your glares and airs, until we learn all about the money.”

Mrs. Berrow would have spoken, but that Clyde, seeing it was best to deal quietly with this domineering female, bent forward. “Pardon me, my dear lady,” he said, in his unctuous voice, and addressing his hostess, “but it will be better to let these people speak.”

“Much better,” snorted the Amazon, grimly.

“I confess,” went on Mason Clyde, waving his eyeglass, “that I am amazed at the resemblance borne by this—this—”

“Crossing-sweeper,” put in Alice, quietly, whereupon Miss Tudor-Stuart turned on her sharply.

“How do you know that, miss?”

“A friend of mine, Mr. Treffry, saw this sweeper, near the railway station, on the evening when Mr. Berrow was murdered, and gave him some money. Am I not right?” she added, looking at the hunchback.

He nodded, with a curious smile, and Alice started, so close was the likeness between the living and the dead. “You are right, miss,” said the hunchback, in a harsh, croaking voice. “A gentleman did give me money on that evening. I remember, because he gave me half-a-crown. As I mostly get pennies, you can’t wonder that I remember a gentleman so liberal. A tall, fair gentleman, miss, with blue eyes, and—”

“This,” interrupted Miss Tudor-Stuart, impatiently, “is not cricket.”

“What does the creature mean?” asked Captain Tait.

“Creature!” shouted the giantess, starting up, tall and angry. “If you call me names, I’ll shake all the false teeth out of your lean jaw, you shoddy Methuselah!”

The Captain spluttered with rage, and Polly looked as though she were inclined to defend her father. But Clyde, anxious to end the scene, interfered. “Send the servants away, Mrs. Berrow,” he entreated, “and then we may arrive at some understanding as to what these people want.”

“People is better,” grunted the giantess, “but still rude. Suburban manners, I suppose. I belong to the West End myself.”

Mrs. Berrow took no notice of this speech, but nodded towards Worthing, the butler, who at once removed the deeply-interested servants from the room. When the door was closed she turned towards the uninvited guest and spoke sharply. “Say what you have to say, and leave!”

Miss Tudor-Stuart laughed insolently. “You may have to leave yourself, my dear. Ben, give her a shock.”

Obediently the dwarf slipped off his chair. He seemed to be completely under the dominion of the lady who called herself “Mamma,” and frequently looked towards her, as though for guidance. “I am the cousin of the late Mr. Evan Berrow,” he declared, in his harsh voice. “My father is dead, and this is my mother. I am Benjamin Berrow, and the heir to the property.”

“Which you will get, my love, if mamma can manage it,” said the ogress; “and you may mention that this,” she tugged at the girl’s arm, “is your foster-sister, Ruth, which mamma adopted out of sheer compassion.”

“This is ridiculous,” said Mrs. Berrow.

The dwarf turned on her with a determined air, which contrasted strongly with his previous timidity. “I speak the truth,” he declared. “Evan was my cousin. When I was sweeping a crossing in Whitechapel he came to see me, about three weeks ago, and—”

“Had he ever seen you before?” asked the lawyer, quickly.

“No. We never met, nor had I ever heard of him before. I never knew that I had a cousin. But Evan came—he told me to call him Evan—as we were cousins—and wanted me to come to Chadston, where he promised to look after me. But mamma would not let me go.”

“Certainly not,” said Miss Tudor-Stuart, with a snort, “because Evan Berrow refused to let me have a pension if I dispensed with the earnings of Ben here. I go round with Ruth and an organ,” she explained, graciously, to her hearers, “and what with my earnings and Ben’s crossing-sweeping money, we get on fairly well, though not sufficiently wealthy to live in the style to which I was accustomed in my glorious youth. I am a lady, and—”

“Here, come to the point,” interrupted Clyde, losing his habitual politeness. “What do you know of Evan Berrow?”

“Nothing. I never heard of him until three weeks ago,” retorted the woman alertly. “He came to our humble home in Whitechapel, and wanted Ben to leave me, and live at Chadston—as his poor relation, I suppose. Being Ben’s mother, I naturally wanted a pension to enable me to live as I was used to live when supping with dukes and earls. But Evan Berrow refused, and went away. The day before he was killed—I know the date from the papers, which I read to improve my mind—a letter came from him asking Ben to meet him near the Chadston railway station. No money was sent, but I thought that something might come of the matter, so I let Ben go. He had to walk all the way, which was not agreeable, seeing the poor beast is a hunchback.”

Ben winced at this cruel speech, and turned pale. But at a pitying glance from Alice the colour returned to his face, and he took up the story in a defiant manner. “I carried my broom,” he said, “just to earn money on the way by sweeping people’s doorsteps. I got to Chadston early in the evening on Monday—about five—and waited near the railway station, as directed. There I swept the crossing free of snow, and Mr. Treffry,” he glanced towards Alice, “gave me half-a-crown. I waited for Mr. Berrow, but he did not come, so I went to sleep at Ruth’s grandmother’s, who lives in Chadston. Early next morning I went back to Whitechapel—about seven. I took the train back, as I had made money in Chadston.”

“Then you did not see Mr. Berrow?” asked Clyde, anxiously.

“No. He never kept his promise. I don’t know why he asked me to come here.”

“I do,” snorted Miss Tudor-Stuart, folding her arms tightly. “Evan knew he would die, and intended to make you his heir.”

“How do you know that Mr. Berrow knew he would die?” asked Mrs. Berrow.

“Because he told me when at Whitechapel that he had enemies,” and the Amazon eyed Mrs. Berrow so significantly that the lady coloured, and did not ask further questions.

Mason Clyde thought for a few moments before replying. “I do not know what Mr. Berrow’s intentions may have been,” he said, after a deliberate pause, “but it was out of his power to make this person,” he indicated the dwarf with a disdainful wave of the hand, “his heir. By the wish of the late Mr. Berrow’s father, the money was left to Mrs. Berrow,” he bowed to that lady, “and the will was made some three years ago, before Mr. Evan Berrow—as I understand—was aware of the existence of a cousin.”

“He is a cousin,” said Miss Tudor-Stuart, sharply. “I married a relative of Evan’s father, and Ben is my son.”

“How can we be sure of that?” asked Clyde.

“Look at him,” Miss Tudor-Stuart pointed to the shrinking dwarf. “Is not he the image of the little man who came to see me in Whitechapel?”

“Yes, yes,” assented Mrs. Berrow, quickly, “but my husband never said to me that he had any relative. And, granting that he had a relative,” she added, emphatically, “are you the wife of that relative?”

“I can produce my marriage certificate,” said the Amazon, wrathfully. “Don’t you dare to say that I am what I am not. I have always been honest, in spite of dukes and earls, and the rest of them. I am Mrs. Berrow—Mrs. Arthur Berrow.”

“Ridiculous,” cried the other owner of the title.

“It’s you who are ridiculous,” shouted the Amazon, “you painted, dyed Jezebel!”

“If you talk like that I’ll call in the police.”

“Call them in. I’m used to them. I know the police, and the police know me.”

She threw herself back with a defiant laugh, and Clyde rose to his feet. “Whatever you are,” he said, sharply, “you are quite mistaken in thinking that you, or your son, will get any money. The property has been left by will to Mrs. Berrow here.”

“And I get nothing?” said Miss Tudor-Stuart, in dismay.

“Nothing. So I think you had better go.”

“Isn’t there a reward?” asked Mrs. Berrow, anticipating Clyde.

“What reward?”

“For the discovery of the murderer.”

“I shall offer five hundred pounds, and—”

The Amazon jumped up with a shout of glee.

“It’s mine!” she said, slapping her pocket. “When I saw in the papers about the murder I came here, with Ben and Ruth, to see Ruth’s grandmother. The old woman found something near the scene of the crime in High Street. Ruth, produce what you have. Then we’ll get five hundred pounds, and I’ll take it. You shall have ten pounds to yourself, to share with your grandmother.”

The red-haired girl brought out of her pocket a long knife, with a barbarically carved handle, and threw it on a nearby table. “This!” said Miss Tudor-Stuart, dramatically, “is the knife which killed Evan Berrow!”