Читать книгу The Mystery Of A Wheel-Barrow - W. Humer Ferguson - Страница 8

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An earnest conversation with his toothbrush left little doubt in Mr. Clawby’s mind as to the identity of the murderer. The gentleman in the dressing-gown had carried out his murderous threat with such promptitude and despatch that it now only remained to request the favour of his acquaintance. The toothbrush acquiesced in this arrangement. Gentlemen there were, certainly, and many of them, who might answer to the description given, but Mr. Clawby had made up his mind, so there was nothing further to be said. Mr. Lessland, as in duty bound, would turn up at Kangaroo Villa at the proper moment, and would furnish the most comprehensive information as to the habits of the deceased, his friends, and his enemies. So Mr. Clawby (disguised as a Beefeater from the Tower of London, freshly arrived in Melbourne to represent Her Majesty during the Jubilee festivities) hired a brougham, and drove to Kangaroo Villa.

Mrs. Gabbleton, after kissing his feet, conducted Mr. Clawby to the late Mr. Black’s apartments. The detective glanced round, and at once summed up the defunct. Detectives always do that.

“Just a real masher,” said he; “portraits everywhere—bold young things galore, jockeys, horses, Sullivan and Mitchell, Queen Victoria, Tootsie Vaughan, and the late lamented Lord Beaconsfield.”

The lamp-glasses were of a delicate pink colour, and a soft rosy light shimmered over the Kidderminster carpet like a perfumed smile upon the purple lips of dawn. Mr. Clawby’s inquisitive eye was attracted by the heterogeneous assortment of tobacco pipes, arranged in a rack over the mantle-shelf. He took one of them down, filled it, and dreamily lighting up with one of Lubina’s curl-papers, continued his investigations.

“Rather fond of the—hum—ladies, I observe,” said he, with an amatory wink at the gentle Lubina.

“Yes, the brute,” replied she, dryly, “and the less they had on the better he liked ‘em—the himpudent hussies! You won’t find my portrait there—wich I am in the ‘abit of concealing my anatomy from the gaze of men, the brutes.”

“Ah! madam,” said Mr. Clawbv with a sigh, and kissing the fair hand he held within his own, “full many a flower was born to blush unseen.”

“Drop that, old hoss, I’m no chicken, you bet—though you are just delightful in them red breeks.”

Though a detective of twenty years’ standing, Mr. Clawby had still a soft place in his heart. He turned and strolled over to the library, chiefly with the object of concealing his emotion. The library, so called, consisted of a few old numbers of the “Pink ‘Un,” from whose pages Mr. Clawby read several poetical extracts to the chaste Lubina, whose face flushed with näif pleasure at the piquant naughtiness of that high-toned print. There was also a volume of Zola, but Mr. Clawby flung it from him as though defiled. “Zoler!” cried he’ “out upon him for a ribald serpent, polluting the pure air of our great and rising colony—I trample him beneath my feet! But thou, Gabareaux, over whose golden page my heart and brain have throbbed in unison,—is there no work of thine immortal pen upon these scanty shelves? I am undone! I am undone!”

“Oh! Mr. Clawby, and me alone with you,” said Mrs. Gabbleton, with a modest blush.

“Sweet Lubina, fear not, my gorgeous raiment is intact.” Mr. Clawby flung himself at her feet, and declared his ardent and undying passion for his chaste Lubina.

“What are you up to, Black?” exclaimed a voice; “private theatricals, eh?”

Mr. Clawby sprang to his feet, and resumed the calm, collected air of a detective of many years’ standing.

The new arrival consisted of a tall, doll-faced young man, pink and white in hue, with straw-coloured curls and moustaches. He wore a costume of the largest chess-board pattern, and the most fashionable ready-made cut. This studied elegance of dress, and the short clay pipe he held between his teeth, combined to give him a strikingly aristocratic appearance.

“Where’s Black, mother?” he asked, sitting astride the piano, and puffing his smoke in Mr. Clawby’s face with nonchalant grace.

“Do you mean to say you haven’t seen him lately?” said the wily one.

“Who the devil are you, old blazes?” returned the new-comer.

Mr. Clawby, unruffled by this unseemly query, stood gazing dreamily at the handsome young aristocrat, who presently said, nonchalantly—

“I presume, my friend, you are a hopeless lunatic, to whom Black has offered an eleemosynary abode for the purpose of psychological research?”

Mr. Clawby advanced boldly to the piano, struck a few chords with a masterly indifference to accidentals, and, with great taste and expression, sang the following

RECITATIVE AND ARIA

When summer snows shall blanch the vales of Ind,

And mellowing melons bend the hawthorn bough;

When ruminants shall roam the watery wastes,

And periwinkles thrum the lovesome lute;

When limpets, chorusing soft Lydian airs,

Shall ‘witch the world with wondrous horsemanship—

Then say the fame of Clawby is no more .

Lecoq (you know your Gaboreau)

His genius inherits;

His heye is like the heagle’s,

His nose is like the ferret’s.

But, Clawby too, a goodly crew

Of “wanted” ones inweigles:

His nose is like the ferret’s, His heye is like the heagle’s.

Tho’ once I “took” a guileless “dook”

Thro’ taking too much “sperrets,”

My heye is like the heagle’s, My nose is like the ferret’s.

Some I beguiles with words and smiles

Like syrup, sir (not Siegel’s)— My nose is like the ferret’s, My heye is like the heagle’s.

The world, with tears, for countless years

Shall catalogue my merits:—

My heye, that’s like the heagle’s, My nose, that’s like the ferret’s.

“Bravo, Blazes!” cried the aristocrat. “Bravo! didn’t think you had it in you. Now the, tell me, where’s Black? What’s he been up to? Too pressing in his attentions to Mrs. Gabbleton?”

“Heaven forbid,” cried Mr. Clawby, with emotion.

“Oh, the brute!” screamed Lubina. “Me? a poor innocent, modest, retiring widow!”

“Do you happen to know where Black is to be found?” asked the cautious detective.

“I do not, Blazes. I’ve been up country on a—on a temperance mission, and—”

“Good young man,” said Clawby, touched to the heart. Then suddenly—“Black’s dead.” The aristocrat collapsed.

“Why, in the name of Scott, didn’t you say so, you blazing idiot, instead of pestering me with your damnably impertinent questions. Good old Black! Dearest and best. Oh me! oh me! of course I never read the papers; everybody else did—alas! alas! We were brothers, figuratively speaking,” sobbed the aristocrat; “we shared everything, I especially—boo-hoo, boo-hoo—”

“Noble heart!” groaned the Beefeater, rocking himself to and fro.

“We came here on the same boat—boo-hoo—”

“Poor dear!” moaned Mrs. Gabbleton.

“—Many’s the time we went ‘Thomas Dodd’ for the hebdomadal clean shirt—boo-hoo, boo-hoo—”

“Sweet sympathetic soul!” gurgled Mr. Clawby.

“—Many’s the time we sparred three rounds for the handkerchief—boo-hoo!—returned in its pristine purity—boo-hoo!—from the wash—”

“Let brotherly love continue,” ejaculated Mr. Clawby, through his tears.

“—In fact, Blazes,” said Mr. Lessland, growing calm, “in fact I was with him almost to the last.”

“Oh the brute!” shrieked Lubina.

“We were like brothers,” continued the young man. “Is it not natural that I should have been with him in his last hours? Don’t think I did the job—not I! Fact is, Blazes, we were awfully tight, don’t yer know, old fellow. You know the song—

‘We all got mixed, and had a jolly spree,

Thro’ going with the missus to the ju-bil-lee.’

Chorus please.”

The chorus floated on the stilly evening air like a mystic funeral dirge.

The aristocrat continued:—“It is as well in a case like this, don’t yer know, to throw aside social scruples. We did. Poor Black! He was very argumentative—insisted on proving the presence of microbes in the moon, and all that sort of thing, don’t-yer-know,—came to blows with a pump for refusing to enter the club with us—Dressing-gown Club, you know, Blazes. Then we visited some friends, passed the flowing bowl, and so on, until poor Black left us in charge of his dressing-gown, and went out, saying he had an old score to settle with pa Frecklenose at the ‘Kilted Opossum,’ you know, Blazes. Well, shortly after, waiter requested me to retire. I did so—under the table. Then they swept me out, social scruples and all. I remember smiling tenderly at Black’s dressing-gown on my arm. ‘Lovely ni’, my dear, for stroll home,’ said I. Then, all of a sudden, throwing aside all my remaining social scruples, I rolled into the gutter. Next morning I found myself in bed, fully attired for a country trip. I left town at an early hour, and sought for peace in solemn and solitary communion with Nature.”

“Great and noble soul!” said Mr. Clawby, with tears in his voice.

Seizing an album, the aristocrat rapidly turned the leaves until he came to the portrait of a young lady. “Peggy Frecklenose!” he explained; “Miss Frecklenose, Blazes—Blazes, Miss Frecklenose!”

Miss Frecklenose had been “taken” in a costume both charming and original. Clad in a robe of white material, “mystic, beautiful,” the sleeves turned up to her dimpled elbows, she brandished the trusty staff of a special constable. Her fair hair, hanging upon her forehead in luxurious masses of fringe, was surmounted by a policeman’s helmet. What struck the beholder as being her principal charm was the naive, ingenuous expression informing her whole physiognomy, chiefly due to a delicately-balanced obliquity of vision, which lent to her eyes a je-ne-sais-quoi of uncertain farouche tenderness. Underneath this graceful portrait were the following lines, scrawled in Black’s irregular handwriting:—

Not for thee, inane Fitzdoodle,

Blossom’d all these beauteous charms,

’Ware the staff! Wouldst thou canoodle

Pallas pale with Love’s alarms ?

“Black was passionately fond of her,” explained Mr. Lessland, “but Peggy was madly in love with Fitzdoodle; hence these beautiful lines—boo-hoo—the beautiful lines of my dead friend;” and the aristocrat sobbed afresh.

“This Fitzdoodle wore a dressing-gown occasionally, did he not?”

“Ya-as, great swell, don’t yer know; very handsome, Blazes; in fact, resembled me awfully, don’t yer know. Called here not long ago; raised disreputable shindy, Blazes; dreadful character!”

“The very man!” said Mr. Clawby to himself.

“Well, Blazes, I’m o.p.h. Unless the exigencies of this remarkable drama should require my presence, I shall disappear for a short time. But I’ll do what I can to help you, boo-hoo”—(here the aristocrat broke down)—“to find the murderer of my dear dead friend. Of course you have your ‘spicions now—Fitzdoodle, eh, Blazes?”

Mr. Clawby placed the thumb of his left hand to the tip of his astute nose, and, spreading out his four fingers, said, in a hoarse whisper—

“P’raps ‘e did, p’raps ‘e didn’t. Eggs is eggs. As an experienced detective of twenty years’ standing, I have an idea, and I mean to stick to it.”