The Beetle Part 54

Miss Coleman paused to smooth her ap.r.o.n, and consider.

'Well, the receipt should have reached this here party on the Thursday morning, as it were,-I posted it on the Wednesday night, and on the Thursday, after breakfast, I thought I'd go over the way to see if there was any little thing I could do,-because there wasn't hardly a whole pane of gla.s.s in the place,-when I all but went all of a heap. When I looked across the road, blessed it the party wasn't in already,-at least as much as he ever was in, which, so far as I can make out, never has been anything particular,-though how he had got in, unless it was through a window in the middle of the night, is more than I should care to say,-there was n.o.body in the house when I went to bed, that I could pretty nearly take my Bible oath,-yet there was the blind up at the parlour, and, what's more, it was down, and it's been down pretty nearly ever since.

'"Well," I says to myself, "for right down imperence this beats anything,-why he's in the place before he knows if I'll let him have it. Perhaps he thinks I haven't got a word to say in the matter,-fifty pounds or no fifty pounds, I'll soon show him." So I slips on my bonnet, and I walks over the road, and I hammers at the door.

'Well, I have seen people hammering since then, many a one, and how they've kept it up has puzzled me,-for an hour, some of them,-but I was the first one as begun it. I hammers, and I hammers, and I kept on hammering, but it wasn't no more use than if I'd been hammering at a tombstone. So I starts rapping at the window, but that wasn't no use neither. So I goes round behind, and I hammers at the back door,-but there, I couldn't make anyone hear nohow. So I says to myself, "Perhaps the party as is in, ain't in, in a manner of speaking; but I'll keep an eye on the house, and when he is in I'll take care that he ain't out again before I've had a word to say."

'So I come back home, and as I said I would, I kept an eye on the house the whole of that livelong day, but never a soul went either out or in. But the next day, which it was a Friday, I got out of bed about five o'clock, to see if it was raining, through my having an idea of taking a little excursion if the weather was fine, when I see a party coming down the road. He had on one of them dirty-coloured bed-cover sort of things, and it was wrapped all over his head and round his body, like, as I have been told, them there Arabs wear,-and, indeed, I've seen them in them myself at West Brompton, when they was in the exhibition there. It was quite fine, and broad day, and I see him as plainly as I see you, -he comes skimming along at a tear of a pace, pulls up at the house over the way, opens the front door, and lets himself in.

'"So," I says to myself, "there you are. Well, Mr Arab, or whatever, or whoever, you may be, I'll take good care that you don't go out again before you've had a word from me. I'll show you that landladies have their rights, like other Christians, in this country, however it may be in yours." So I kept an eye on the house, to see that he didn't go out again, and n.o.body never didn't, and between seven and eight I goes and I knocks at the door,-because I thought to myself that the earlier I was the better it might be.

'If you'll believe me, no more notice was taken of me than if I was one of the dead. I hammers, and I hammers, till my wrist was aching, I daresay I hammered twenty times,-and then I went round to the back door, and I hammers at that,-but it wasn't the least good in the world. I was that provoked to think I should be treated as if I was nothing and n.o.body, by a dirty foreigner, who went about in a bed-gown through the public streets, that it was all I could do to hold myself.

'I comes round to the front again, and I starts hammering at the window, with every knuckle on my hands, and I calls out, "I'm Miss Louisa Coleman, and I'm the owner of this house, and you can't deceive me,-I saw you come in, and you're in now, and if you don't come and speak to me this moment I'll have the police."

'All of a sudden, when I was least expecting it, and was hammering my very hardest at the pane, up goes the blind, and up goes the window too, and the most awful-looking creature ever I heard of, not to mention seeing, puts his head right into my face,-he was more like a hideous baboon than anything else, let alone a man. I was struck all of a heap, and plumps down on the little wall, and all but tumbles head over heels backwards, And he starts shrieking, in a sort of a kind of English, and in such a voice as I'd never heard the like,-it was like a rusty steam engine.

'"Go away! go away! I don't want you! I will not have you,-never! You have your fifty pounds,-you have your money,-that is the whole of you,-that is all you want! You come to me no more!- never!-never no more!-or you be sorry!-Go away!"

'I did go away, and that as fast as ever my legs would carry me,- what with his looks, and what with his voice, and what with the way that he went on, I was nothing but a ma.s.s of trembling. As for answering him back, or giving him a piece of my mind, as I had meant to, I wouldn't have done it not for a thousand pounds. I don't mind confessing, between you and me, that I had to swallow four cups of tea, right straight away, before my nerves was steady.

'"Well," I says to myself, when I did feel, as it might be, a little more easy, "you never have let that house before, and now you've let it with a vengeance,-so you have. If that there new tenant of yours isn't the greatest villain that ever went unhung it must be because he's got near relations what's as bad as himself,-because two families like his I'm sure there can't be. A nice sort of Arab party to have sleeping over the road he is!"

'But after a time I cools down, as it were,-because I'm one of them sort as likes to see on both sides of a question. "After all," I says to myself, "he has paid his rent, and fifty pounds is fifty pounds,-I doubt if the whole house is worth much more, and he can't do much damage to it whatever he does."

'I shouldn't have minded, so far as that went, if he'd set fire to the place, for, between ourselves, it's insured for a good bit over its value. So I decided that I'd let things be as they were, and see how they went on. But from that hour to this I've never spoken to the man, and never wanted to, and wouldn't, not of my own free will, not for a s.h.i.+lling a time,-that face of his will haunt me if I live till Noah, as the saying is. I've seen him going in and out at all hours of the day and night,-that Arab party's a mystery if ever there was one,-he always goes tearing along as if he's flying for his life. Lots of people have come to the house, all sorts and kinds, men and women-they've been mostly women, and even little children. I've seen them hammer and hammer at that front door, but never a one have I seen let in,-or yet seen taken any notice of, and I think I may say, and yet tell no lie, that I've scarcely took my eye off the house since he's been inside it, over and over again in the middle of the night have I got up to have a look, so that I've not missed much that has took place.

'What's puzzled me is the noises that's come from the house. Sometimes for days together there's not been a sound, it might have been a house of the dead; and then, all through the night, there've been yells and screeches, squawks and screams,-I never heard nothing like it. I have thought, and more than once, that the devil himself must be in that front room, let alone all the rest of his demons. And as for cats!-where they've come from I can't think. I didn't use to notice hardly a cat in the neighbourhood till that there Arab party came,-there isn't much to attract them; but since he came there's been regiments. Sometimes at night there's been troops about the place, screeching like mad,-I've wished them farther, I can tell you. That Arab party must be fond of 'em. I've seen them inside the house, at the windows, upstairs and downstairs, as it seemed to me, a dozen at a time.

CHAPTER XL

WHAT MISS COLEMAN SAW THROUGH THE WINDOW

As Miss Coleman had paused, as if her narrative was approaching a conclusion, I judged it expedient to make an attempt to bring the record as quickly as possible up to date.

'I take it, Miss Coleman, that you have observed what has occurred in the house to-day.'

She tightened her nut-cracker jaws and glared at me disdainfully, -her dignity was ruffled.

'I'm coming to it, aren't I?-if you'll let me. If you've got no manners I'll learn you some. One doesn't like to be hurried at my time of life, young man.'

I was meekly silent;-plainly, if she was to talk, every one else must listen.

'During the last few days there have been some queer goings on over the road,-out of the common queer, I mean, for goodness knows that they always have been queer enough. That Arab party has been flitting about like a creature possessed,-I've seen him going in and out twenty times a day. This morning-'

She paused,-to fix her eyes on Lessingham. She apparently observed his growing interest as she approached the subject which had brought us there,-and resented it.

'Don't look at me like that, young man, because I won't have it. And as for questions, I may answer questions when I'm done, but don't you dare to ask me one before, because I won't be interrupted.'

Up to then Lessingham had not spoken a word,-but it seemed as if she was endowed with the faculty of perceiving the huge volume of the words which he had left unuttered.

'This morning-as I've said already,-' she glanced at Lessingham as if she defied his contradiction-'when that Arab party came home it was just on the stroke of seven. I know what was the exact time because, when I went to the door to the milkman, my clock was striking the half hour, and I always keep it thirty minutes fast. As I was taking the milk, the man said to me, "Hollo, Miss Coleman, here's your friend coming along." "What friend?" I says, -for I ain't got no friends, as I know, round here, nor yet, I hope no enemies neither.

'And I looks round, and there was the Arab party coming tearing down the road, his bedcover thing all flying in the wind, and his arms straight out in front of him,-I never did see anyone go at such a pace. "My goodness," I says, "I wonder he don't do himself an injury." "I wonder someone else don't do him an injury," says the milkman. "The very sight of him is enough to make my milk go sour." And he picked up his pail and went away quite grumpy,- though what that Arab party's done to him is more than I can say. -I have always noticed that milkman's temper's short like his measure. I wasn't best pleased with him for speaking of that Arab party as my friend, which he never has been, and never won't be, and never could be neither.

'Five persons went to the house after the milkman was gone, and that there Arab party was safe inside,-three of them was commercials, that I know, because afterwards they came to me. But of course they none of them got no chance with that there Arab party except of hammering at his front door, which ain't what you might call a paying game, nor nice for the temper but for that I don't blame him, for if once those commercials do begin talking they'll talk for ever.

'Now I'm coming to this afternoon.'

I thought it was about time,-though for the life of me, I did not dare to hint as much.

'Well, it might have been three, or it might have been half past, anyhow it was thereabouts, when up there comes two men and a woman, which one of the men was that young man what's a friend of yours. "Oh," I says to myself, "here's something new in callers, I wonder what it is they're wanting." That young man what was a friend of yours, he starts hammering, and hammering, as the custom was with every one who came, and, as usual, no more notice was taken of him than nothing,-though I knew that all the time the Arab party was indoors.'

At this point I felt that at all hazards I must interpose a question.

'You are sure he was indoors?'

She took it better than I feared she might.

'Of course I'm sure,-hadn't I seen him come in at seven, and he never hadn't gone out since, for I don't believe that I'd taken my eyes off the place not for two minutes together, and I'd never had a sight of him. If he wasn't indoors, where was he then?'

For the moment, so far as I was concerned, the query was unanswerable. She triumphantly continued:

'Instead of doing what most did, when they'd had enough of hammering, and going away, these three they went round to the back, and I'm blessed if they mustn't have got through the kitchen window, woman and all, for all of a sudden the blind in the front room was pulled not up, but down-dragged down it was, and there was that young man what's a friend of yours standing with it in his hand.

'"Well," I says to myself, "if that ain't cool I should like to know what is. If, when you ain't let in, you can let yourself in, and that without so much as saying by your leave, or with your leave, things is coming to a pretty pa.s.s. Wherever can that Arab party be, and whatever can he be thinking of, to let them go on like that because that he's the sort to allow a liberty to be took with him, and say nothing, I don't believe."

'Every moment I expects to hear a noise and see a row begin, but, so far as I could make out, all was quiet and there wasn't nothing of the kind. So I says to myself, "There's more in this than meets the eye, and them three parties must have right upon their side, or they wouldn't be doing what they are doing in the way they are, there'd be a s.h.i.+ndy."

'Presently, in about five minutes, the front door opens, and a young man-not the one what's your friend, but the other-comes sailing out, and through the gate, and down the road, as stiff and upright as a grenadier,-I never see anyone walk more upright, and few as fast. At his heels comes the young man what is your friend, and it seems to me that he couldn't make out what this other was a-doing of. I says to myself, "There's been a quarrel between them two, and him as has gone has hooked it." This young man what is your friend he stood at the gate, all of a fidget, staring after the other with all his eyes, as if he couldn't think what to make of him, and the young woman, she stood on the doorstep, staring after him too.

'As the young man what had hooked it turned the corner, and was out of sight, all at once your friend he seemed to make up his mind, and he started off running as hard as he could pelt,-and the young woman was left alone. I expected, every minute, to see him come back with the other young man, and the young woman, by the way she hung about the gate, she seemed to expect it too. But no, nothing of the kind. So when, as I expect, she'd had enough of waiting, she went into the house again, and I see her pa.s.s the front room window. After a while, back she comes to the gate, and stands looking and looking, but nothing was to be seen of either of them young men. When she'd been at the gate, I daresay five minutes, back she goes into the house,-and I never saw nothing of her again.'

'You never saw anything of her again?-Are you sure she went back into the house?'

'As sure as I am that I see you.'

'I suppose that you didn't keep a constant watch upon the premises?'

'But that's just what I did do. I felt something queer was going on, and I made up my mind to see it through. And when I make up my mind to a thing like that I'm not easy to turn aside. I never moved off the chair at my bedroom window, and I never took my eyes off the house, not till you come knocking at my front door.'

'But, since the young lady is certainly not in the house at present, she must have eluded your observation, and, in some manner, have left it without your seeing her.'

'I don't believe she did, I don't see how she could have done,- there's something queer about that house, since that Arab party's been inside it. But though I didn't see her, I did see someone else.'