ARTHUR MORRISON Ultimate Collection: 80+ Mysteries, Detective Stories & Dark Fantasy Tales (Illustrated). Arthur Morrison

about,” he said; “will he be back soon?”

      The boy stared hard at Hewitt. “No,” he said, “he won’t. ‘E’s guv’ up the shop. ‘E paid ‘is next week’s rent this mornin’ and retired.”

      “Oh!” Hewitt answered sharply. “Retired, has he? And what’s become of the stock, eh! Where are the cabbages and potatoes?”

      “‘E told me to give ‘em to the pore, an’ I did. There’s lots o’ pore lives round ‘ere. My mother’s one, an’ these ‘ere coals is for ‘er, an’ I’m goin’ to ‘ave the trolley for myself.”

      “Dear me!” Hewitt answered, regarding the boy with amused interest. “You’re a very business-like almoner. And what will the Tabernacle do without Mr. Penner?”

      “I dunno,” the boy answered, closing the door behind him. “I dunno nothin’ about the Tabernacle—only where it is.”

      “Ah, and where is it? I might find him there, perhaps.”

      “Ward Lane—fust on left, second on right. It’s a shop wot’s bin shut up; next door to a stable-yard.” And the smudgy boy started off with his trolley.

      The Tabernacle was soon found. At some very remote period it had been an unlucky small shop, but now it was permanently shuttered, and the interior was lighted by holes cut in the upper panels of the shutters. Hewitt took a good look at the shuttered window and the door beside it and then entered the stable-yard at the side. To the left of the passage giving entrance to the yard there was a door, which plainly was another entrance to the house, and a still damp mud-mark on the step proved it to have been lately used. Hewitt rapped sharply at the door with his knuckles.

      Presently a female voice from within could be heard speaking through the keyhole in a very loud whisper. “Who is it?” asked the voice.

      Hewitt stooped to the keyhole and whispered back, “Is Mr. Penner here now?”

      “No.”

      “Then I must come in and wait for him. Open the door.” A bolt was pulled back and the door cautiously opened a few inches. Hewitt’s foot was instantly in the jamb, and he forced the door back and entered. “Come,” he said in a loud voice, “I’ve come to find out where Mr. Penner is, and to see whoever is in here.” Immediately there was an assault of fists on the inside of a door at the end of the passage, and a loud voice said, “Do you hear? Whoever you are I’ll give you five pounds if you’ll bring Mr. Martin Hewitt here. His office is 25 Portsmouth Street, Strand. Or the same if you’ll bring the police.” And the voice was that of Mrs. Mallett.

      Hewitt turned to the woman who had opened the door, and who now stood, much frightened, in the corner beside him. “Come,” he said, “your keys, quick, and don’t offer to stir, or I’ll have you brought back and taken to the station.” The woman gave him a bunch of keys without a word. Hewitt opened the door at the end of the passage, and once more Mrs. Mallett stood before him, prim and rigid as ever, except that her bonnet was sadly out of shape and her mantle was torn.

      “Thank you, Mr. Hewitt,” she said. “I thought you’d come, though where I am I know no more than Adam. Somebody shall smart severely for this. Why, and that woman—that woman,” she pointed contemptuously at the woman in the corner, who was about two-thirds her height, “was going to search me—me! Why——” Mrs. Mallett, blazing with suddenly revived indignation, took a step forward and the woman vanished through the outer door.

      “Come,” Hewitt said, “no doubt you’ve been shamefully treated; but we must be quiet for a little. First I will make quite sure that nobody else is here, and then we’ll get to your house.” Nobody was there. The rooms were dreary and mostly empty. The front room, which was lighted by the holes in the shutters, had a rough reading-desk and a table, with half a dozen wooden chairs. “This,” said Hewitt, “is no doubt the Tabernacle proper, and there is very little to see in it. Come back now, Mrs. Mallett, to your house, and we’ll see if some explanation of these things is not possible. I hope your snuff-box is quite safe?”

      Mrs. Mallett drew it from her pocket and exhibited it triumphantly. “I told them they should never get it,” she said, “and they saw I meant it, and left off trying.” As they emerged in the street she said: “The first thing, of course, is to bring the police into this place.”

      “No, I think we won’t do that yet,” Hewitt said. “In the first place the case is one of assault and detention, and your remedy is by summons or action; and then there are other things to speak of. We shall get a cab in the High Street, and you shall tell me what has happened to you.”

      Mrs. Mallett’s story was simple. The cab in which she left Hewitt’s office had travelled west, and was apparently making for the locality of her sister’s house; but the evening was dark, the fog increased greatly, and she shut the windows and took no particular notice of the streets through which she was passing. Indeed with such a fog that would have been impossible. She had a sort of undefined notion that some of the streets were rather narrow and dirty, but she thought nothing of it, since all cabmen are given to selecting unexpected routes. After a time, however, the cab slowed, made a sharp turn, and pulled up. The door was opened, and “Here you are mum,” said the cabby. She did not understand the sharp turn, and had a general feeling that the place could not be her sister’s, but as she alighted she found she had stepped directly upon the threshold of a narrow door into which she was immediately pulled by two persons inside. This, she was sure, must have been the side-door in the stable-yard, through which Hewitt himself had lately obtained entrance to the Tabernacle.

      Before she had recovered from her surprise the door was shut behind her. She struggled stoutly and screamed, but the place she was in was absolutely dark; she was taken by surprise, and she found resistance useless. They were men who held her, and the voice of the only one who spoke she did not know. He demanded in firm and distinct tones that the “sacred thing” should be given up, and that Mrs. Mallett should sign a paper agreeing to prosecute nobody before she was allowed to go. She however, as she asserted with her customary emphasis, was not the sort of woman to give in to that. She resolutely declined to do anything of the sort, and promised her captors, whoever they were, a full and legal return for their behaviour. Then she became conscious that a woman was somewhere present, and the man threatened that this woman should search her. This threat Mrs. Mallett met as boldly as the others. She should like to meet the woman who would dare attempt to search her, she said. She defied anybody to attempt it. As for her uncle Joseph’s snuff-box, no matter where it was, it was where they would not be able to get it. That they should never have, but sooner or later they should have something very unpleasant for their attempts to steal it. This declaration had an immediate effect. They importuned her no more, and she was left in an inner room and the key was turned on her. There she sat, dozing occasionally, the whole night, her indomitable spirit remaining proof through all those doubtful hours of darkness. Once or twice she heard people enter and move about, and each time she called aloud to offer, as Hewitt had heard, a reward to anybody who should bring the police or communicate her situation to Hewitt. Day broke and still she waited, sleepless and unfed, till Hewitt at last arrived and released her.

      On Mrs. Mallett’s arrival at her house Mrs. Rudd’s servant was at once despatched with reassuring news and Hewitt once more addressed himself to the question of the burglars. “First, Mrs. Mallett,” he said, “did you ever conceal anything—anything at all mind—in the frame of an engraving?”

      “No, never.”

      “Were any of your engravings framed before you had them?”

      “Not one that I can remember. They were mostly uncle Joseph’s, and he kept them with a lot of others in drawers. He was rather a collector, you know.”

      “Very well. Now come up to the attic. Something has been opened there that was not touched at the first attempt.”

      “See now,” said Hewitt,