CHAPTER II
WHAT WAS PRINTED ON THE QUARTO BILL: A PROCLAMATION BY HER MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT

HAVE you ever observed and studied the expressions on the faces of the people who congregate before the “Murder” proclamations pasted up in Scotland Yard, and on the dead walls of the poor neighbourhoods in England? Have you ever endeavoured, by a mental process, to discover the characters of some of these gaping men and women who read the bills and linger before them with a horrible fascination? Appropriate, indeed, that such announcements of mysterious murders should be pasted on dead walls! Come with me, and mingle for a few moments with this little group, gathered before a Government proclamation in Parliament-street, offering a reward for the discovery of a murderer. Here is a respectable-looking workman, with his basket of tools over his shoulder, running his eyes swiftly down the bill, and taking in its purport with rapid comprehension. He knows already about the murder, as indeed all London does, having read the particulars in the newspapers. “They’ve offered a reward at last,” he thinks, with a scornful smile: “they ought to have done it a month ago. Too late, now. This is another added to the list. How many undiscovered murders have been committed in the last twelve months? Temple of intellect, Scotland Yard!” As he walks away to his work, he looks with a kind of contempt at the policeman sauntering lazily along. Here is a young woman, without a bonnet, reading the bill very slowly; she can read quicker if she likes, but as the words pass before her eyes, she thinks of her own life and the drunken brute of a man she is living with. She would leave him to-day, this very moment, but she is afraid. “Do!” the brute has frequently exclaimed, when she has threatened to run away from him; “and say your prayers! As sure as you stand there I’ll kill yer, my beauty! I don’t mind being ’ung for yer!” And in proof of his fondness for her, he gives her, for the hundredth time, a taste of his power by striking her to the earth. “Git up!” he cries, “and never cheek me agin, or it’ll be worse for yer.” “I wonder,” the young woman is now thinking as she reads the particulars of the murder, “whether there’ll ever be a bill like that out about me; for Jack’s a cunning one!” Here is an errand boy reading the bill, with his eyes growing larger and larger. Murders will be committed in his dreams to-night. But before night comes an irresistible fascination will draw him to the neighbourhood in which the murder was committed, and he will feast his eyes upon the house. Here is an old woman spelling out the words, wagging her head the while. It is as good as a play to her. She lives in Pye Street, Westminster, and is familiar with crime in its every aspect. She is drunk – she has not been sober a day for thirty years. Well, she was born in a thief’s den, and her mother died in a delirium of drink. Here is a thief, who has lived more than half his life in prison, reading the bill critically, with a professional eye. It would be a pleasure to him to detect a flaw in it. There is in his mind a certain indignation that some person unknown to himself or his friends should have achieved such notoriety. “I’d like to catch ’im,” he thinks, “and pocket the shiners.” He wouldn’t peach on a pal, but, for such a reward, he would on one who was not “in the swim.” Here is a dark-visaged man reading the bill secretly, unaware that he is casting furtive glances around to make sure that he is not being watched. There is guilt on the soul of this man; a crime undiscovered, which haunts him by day and night. He reads, and reads, and reads; and then slinks into the nearest public-house, and spends his last twopence in gin. As he raises the glass to his lips he can scarcely hold it, his hand trembles so. How sweet must life be to the man who holds it on such terms; and how terrible the fears of death! Here is another man who reads the bill with an assumption of indifference, and even compels himself to read it slowly a second time, and then walks carelessly away. He walks, with strangely steady steps, along Parliament Street, southwards, and turns to Westminster Bridge, holding all the way some strong emotion in control. Difficult as it is, he has a perfect mastery over himself, and no sound escapes him till he reaches the bridge; then he leans over, and gives vent to his emotion. It takes the form of laughter – horrible laughter – which he sends downwards into the dark waters of the Thames, hiding his face the while! What secret lies concealed in his brain? Is he mad – or worse?

Many small knots of people had lately gathered before the bills posted on London walls, of which one was in the possession of Mrs. James Preedy:

MURDER

£100 REWARD

Whereas, on the morning of Thursday, the 10th of July, the Dead Body of a MAN was found on the premises, No. 119, Great Porter Square, London, under such circumstances as prove that he was Murdered. An Inquest has been held on the Body, and the Coroner’s Jury having returned a “Verdict of Wilful Murder against some Person or Persons Unknown,” the above Reward will be paid to any Person (other than a Person belonging to a Police Force in the United Kingdom) who shall give such Information as shall lead to the Discovery and Conviction of the Murderer or Murderers; and the Secretary of State for the Home Department will advise the Grant of her Majesty’s Gracious to

PARDON

any Accomplice not being the Person who actually committed the Murder who shall give such evidence as shall lead to a like result.

Evidence to be given, to the Director of Criminal Investigators, Great Scotland Yard, or at any Police station.

CHAPTER III
EXTRACTED FROM THE “EVENING MOON.”

THE Evening Moon was an enterprising little paper, which gave all the news of the day in a fashion so entertaining that it was a success from its first appearance. Between noon and night a dozen editions were published, and were hawked about the streets by regiments of ragged boys and girls (irregular infantry), whose vivacity and impudence added to the circulation, if they did not to the dignity, of the journal. Beneath the heading of the paper was a representation of the moon with the man in it looking at a spade – to which was tacked the legend: “What do you call this?” “A spade.” “Then I shall call it a spade.” Despite this declaration it delighted in word-painting, and its reports of police-court proceedings, highly coloured in many instances and unwarrantably but agreeably spiced with romance, were read with avidity. The Evening Moon of the 19th of August contained the following report of the police-court proceedings in

THE GREAT PORTER SQUARE MYSTERY

“The inquiry into the awful and mysterious murder in Great Porter Square was resumed this morning at the Martin Street Police Court, before the resident magistrate, Mr. Reardon. The accused person, Antony Cowlrick, who presented a woe-begone appearance, was brought up in charge of the warders. The case has been adjourned four times, and this was the fifth appearance of Antony Cowlrick in the dock. The police preserve a strict silence with regard to him – a silence against which we protest. Arrested upon suspicion, without warrant, and without, so far we can learn, a shadow of evidence against him, nothing but injustice and wrong can accrue from the course pursued by the Scotland Yard officials. Antony Cowlrick is unmistakably a poor and miserable man. All that was found upon him when he was arrested were a stale crust of bread and a piece of hard cheese, which he had thrust into his pocket as he was flying from the pursuit of an enterprising constable. His very name – the name he gave at the lock-up on the night of his arrest – may be false, and, if our information is correct, the police have been unable to discover a single person who is acquainted with, or can give any information concerning him. The rumour that Antony Cowlrick is not quite right in his mind certainly receives some confirmation from his haggard and wandering looks; a more wretched and forlorn man has seldom been seen in a magistrate’s court, suggestive as such a place is of misery and degradation. He was carefully guarded, and a strict watch was kept upon his movements, the theory of the police being that he is a dangerous and cunning character, whose sullen demeanour is assumed to defeat the ends of justice. Mr. White Lush, on the part of the Treasury, conducted the inquiry. The interest taken by the public in the case is still unabated, and the court – if a close, abominably-ventilated room fourteen feet square can be so denominated – was crowded to excess.

On the calling of the case, the magistrate inquired if the accused man was still undefended, and the police replied that no one appeared for him. The answer was scarcely given when Mr. Goldberry (of the firm of Goldberry, Entwistle, and Pugh), rose and said that he was there to represent the accused.

Magistrate: Have you been instructed?

Mr. Goldberry: No, your worship. A couple of hours ago I endeavoured to confer with the prisoner, but the police refused me permission to see him.

Inspector Fleming explained that when Mr. Goldberry sought an interview with the prisoner, the prisoner was asked whether he wished to see him; his answer was that he wished to see no one.

Mr. Goldberry: Still, it cannot but be to the prejudice of the prisoner that he should be unrepresented, and I am here to watch the case in his interest.

Magistrate: Perhaps you had better confer with him now.

A few minutes were allowed for this purpose, at the end of which Mr. Goldberry said, although it was impossible to obtain anything like satisfaction from the accused, that he did not object to the appearance of a solicitor on his behalf. “He seems,” added Mr. Goldberry, “to be singularly unmindful as to what becomes of him.”

Magistrate: The case can proceed.

Mr. White Lush: Call Mrs. Preedy.

The witness presented herself, and was sworn.

Mr. White Lush: Your name is Anna Maria Preedy?

Witness: Yes, sir.

Mr. White Lush: You are a widow?

Witness: Yes, sir, worse luck. ’Is name was James, poor dear!

Mr. White Lush: You live at No. 118, Great Porter Square?

Witness: Yes, sir.

Mr. White Lush: How long have you occupied your house?

Witness: Four and twenty year, come Michaelmas.

Mr. White Lush: What kind of a house is yours?

Witness (with spirit): I defy you or any gentleman to say anythink agin its character.

Mr. White Lush: You keep a lodging-house?

Witness: I’m none the worse for that, I suppose?

Mr. White Lush: Answer my question. You keep a lodging-house?

Witness: I do, sir.

Mr. White Lush: Do you remember the night of the 9th of last month?

Witness: I’ve got reason to.

Mr. White Lush: What reason?

Witness: Two of my lodgers run away without paying their rent.

Mr. White Lush: That circumstance fixes the night in your mind?

Witness: It’d fix it in yours if you kep’ a lodging-house. (Laughter.)

Mr. White Lush: No doubt. There were other circumstances, independent of the running away of your lodgers, which serve to fix that night in your mind?

Witness: There was, sir.

Mr. White Lush: The night was Wednesday?

Witness: It were, sir.

Mr. White Lush: How and at what time did you become aware that your lodgers had run away?

Witness: When the last post come in. I got a letter, and the turn it gave me —

Mr. White Lush: That is immaterial. Have you the letter with you?

Witness: The way the perlice ’as been naggin’ at me for that letter —

Mr. White Lush: Have you the letter with you?

Witness: It’s lost, sir.

Mr. White Lush: Let me impress upon you that this letter might be an important link in the case. It is right and proper that the police should be anxious about it. Do you swear positively that you have lost it?

Witness: I do, sir.

Mr. White Lush: How did it happen?

Witness: It were a fortnight after the body was found in No. 119. I ’ad the letter in my ’and, and was lookin’ at it. I laid it down on the kitchen table, and went to answer the street door. When I come back the letter was gone.

Mr. White Lush: Was any person in the kitchen when you left it?

Witness: Not as I am aware on, sir. There was a ’igh wind on, and I left the kitchen door open, and when I come back I noticed a blaze in the fire, as though a bit of paper had been blown into it.

Mr. White Lush: Then your presumption is that the letter is burnt?

Witness: It air, sir.

Mr. White Lush: You have searched for it since?

Witness: I’ve ’unted ’igh and low, sir, without ever settin’ eyes on it.