The Street Of The blank Wall

The Street Of The blank Wall

I had turned off from the Edgware Road into a street leading west,
the atmosphere of which had appealed to me. It was a place of quiet
houses standing behind little gardens. They had the usual names
printed on the stuccoed gateposts. The fading twilight was just
sufficient to enable one to read them. There was a Laburnum Villa,
and The Cedars, and a Cairngorm, rising to the height of three
storeys, with a curious little turret that branched out at the top,
and was crowned with a conical roof, so that it looked as if wearing
a witch's hat. Especially when two small windows just below the
eaves sprang suddenly into light, and gave one the feeling of a pair
of wicked eyes suddenly flashed upon one.

The street curved to the right, ending in an open space through
which passed a canal beneath a low arched bridge. There were still
the same quiet houses behind their small gardens, and I watched for
a while the lamplighter picking out the shape of the canal, that
widened just above the bridge into a lake with an island in the
middle. After that I must have wandered in a circle, for later on I
found myself back in the same spot, though I do not suppose I had
passed a dozen people on my way; and then I set to work to find my
way back to Paddington.

I thought I had taken the road by which I had come, but the half
light must have deceived me. Not that it mattered. They had a
lurking mystery about them, these silent streets with their
suggestion of hushed movement behind drawn curtains, of whispered
voices behind the flimsy walls. Occasionally there would escape the
sound of laughter, suddenly stifled as it seemed, and once the
sudden cry of a child.

It was in a short street of semi-detached villas facing a high blank
wall that, as I passed, I saw a blind move half-way up, revealing a
woman's face. A gas lamp, the only one the street possessed, was
nearly opposite. I thought at first it was the face of a girl, and
then, as I looked again, it might have been the face of an old
woman. One could not distinguish the colouring. In any case, the
cold, blue gaslight would have made it seem pallid.

The remarkable feature was the eyes. It might have been, of course,
that they alone caught the light and held it, rendering them
uncannily large and brilliant. Or it might have been that the rest
of the face was small and delicate, out of all proportion to them.
She may have seen me, for the blind was drawn down again, and I
passed on.

There was no particular reason why, but the incident lingered with
me. The sudden raising of the blind, as of the curtain of some
small theatre, the barely furnished room coming dimly into view, and
the woman standing there, close to the footlights, as to my fancy it
seemed. And then the sudden ringing down of the curtain before the
play had begun. I turned at the corner of the street. The blind
had been drawn up again, and I saw again the slight, girlish figure
silhouetted against the side panes of the bow window.

At the same moment a man knocked up against me. It was not his
fault. I had stopped abruptly, not giving him time to avoid me. We
both apologised, blaming the darkness. It may have been my fancy,
but I had the feeling that, instead of going on his way, he had
turned and was following me. I waited till the next corner, and
then swung round on my heel. But there was no sign of him, and
after a while I found myself back in the Edgware Road.

Once or twice, in idle mood, I sought the street again, but without
success; and the thing would, I expect, have faded from my memory,
but that one evening, on my way home from Paddington, I came across
the woman in the Harrow Road. There was no mistaking her. She
almost touched me as she came out of a fishmonger's shop, and
unconsciously, at the beginning, I found myself following her. This
time I noticed the turnings, and five minutes' walking brought us to
the street. Half a dozen times I must have been within a hundred
yards of it. I lingered at the corner. She had not noticed me, and
just as she reached the house a man came out of the shadows beyond
the lamp-post and joined her.

I was due at a bachelor gathering that evening, and after dinner,
the affair being fresh in my mind, I talked about it. I am not
sure, but I think it was in connection with a discussion on
Maeterlinck. It was that sudden lifting of the blind that had
caught hold of me. As if, blundering into an empty theatre, I had
caught a glimpse of some drama being played in secret. We passed to
other topics, and when I was leaving a fellow guest asked me which
way I was going. I told him, and, it being a fine night, he
proposed that we should walk together. And in the quiet of Harley
Street he confessed that his desire had not been entirely the
pleasure of my company.

"It is rather curious," he said, "but today there suddenly came to
my remembrance a case that for nearly eleven years I have never
given a thought to. And now, on top of it, comes your description
of that woman's face. I am wondering if it can be the same."

"It was the eyes," I said, "that struck me as so remarkable."

"It was the eyes that I chiefly remember her by," he replied.
"Would you know the street again?"

We walked a little while in silence.

"It may seem, perhaps, odd to you," I answered, "but it would
trouble me, the idea of any harm coming to her through me. What was
the case?"

"You can feel quite safe on that point," he assured me. "I was her
counsel--that is, if it is the same woman. How was she dressed?"

I could not see the reason for his question. He could hardly expect
her to be wearing the clothes of eleven years ago.

"I don't think I noticed," I answered. "Some sort of a blouse, I
suppose." And then I recollected. "Ah, yes, there was something
uncommon," I added. "An unusually broad band of velvet, it looked
like, round her neck."

"I thought so," he said. "Yes. It must be the same."

We had reached Marylebone Road, where our ways parted.

"I will look you up to-morrow afternoon, if I may," he said. "We
might take a stroll round together."

He called on me about half-past five, and we reached the street just
as the one solitary gas-lamp had been lighted. I pointed out the
house to him, and he crossed over and looked at the number.

"Quite right," he said, on returning. "I made inquiries this
morning. She was released six weeks ago on ticket-of-leave."

He took my arm.

"Not much use hanging about," he said. "The blind won't go up
to-night. Rather a clever idea, selecting a house just opposite a
lamp-post."

He had an engagement that evening; but later on he told me the
story--that is, so far as he then knew it.

* * *

It was in the early days of the garden suburb movement. One of the
first sites chosen was off the Finchley Road. The place was in the
building, and one of the streets--Laleham Gardens--had only some
half a dozen houses in it, all unoccupied save one. It was a
lonely, loose end of the suburb, terminating suddenly in open
fields. From the unfinished end of the road the ground sloped down
somewhat steeply to a pond, and beyond that began a small wood. The
one house occupied had been bought by a young married couple named
Hepworth.

The husband was a good-looking, pleasant young fellow. Being
clean-shaven, his exact age was difficult to judge. The wife, it
was quite evident, was little more than a girl. About the man there
was a suggestion of weakness. At least, that was the impression
left on the mind of the house-agent. To-day he would decide, and
to-morrow he changed his mind. Jetson, the agent, had almost given
up hope of bringing off a deal. In the end it was Mrs. Hepworth
who, taking the matter into her own hands, fixed upon the house in
Laleham Gardens. Young Hepworth found fault with it on the ground
of its isolation. He himself was often away for days at a time,
travelling on business, and was afraid she would be nervous. He had
been very persistent on this point; but in whispered conversations
she had persuaded him out of his objection. It was one of those
pretty, fussy little houses; and it seemed to have taken her fancy.
Added to which, according to her argument, it was just within their
means, which none of the others were. Young Hepworth may have given
the usual references, but if so they were never taken up. The house
was sold on the company's usual terms. The deposit was paid by a
cheque, which was duly cleared, and the house itself was security
for the rest. The company's solicitor, with Hepworth's consent,
acted for both parties.

It was early in June when the Hepworths moved in. They furnished
only one bedroom; and kept no servant, a charwoman coming in every
morning and going away about six in the evening. Jetson was their
nearest neighbour. His wife and daughters called on them, and
confess to have taken a liking to them both. Indeed, between one of
the Jetson girls, the youngest, and Mrs. Hepworth there seems to
have sprung up a close friendship. Young Hepworth, the husband, was
always charming, and evidently took great pains to make himself
agreeable. But with regard to him they had the feeling that he was
never altogether at his ease. They described him--though that, of
course, was after the event--as having left upon them the impression
of a haunted man.

There was one occasion in particular. It was about ten o'clock.
The Jetsons had been spending the evening with the Hepworths, and
were just on the point of leaving, when there came a sudden, clear
knock at the door. It turned out to be Jetson's foreman, who had to
leave by an early train in the morning, and had found that he needed
some further instructions. But the terror in Hepworth's face was
unmistakable. He had turned a look towards his wife that was almost
of despair; and it had seemed to the Jetsons--or, talking it over
afterwards, they may have suggested the idea to each other--that
there came a flash of contempt into her eyes, though it yielded the
next instant to an expression of pity. She had risen, and already
moved some steps towards the door, when young Hepworth had stopped
her, and gone out himself. But the curious thing was that,
according to the foreman's account, Hepworth never opened the front
door, but came upon him stealthily from behind. He must have
slipped out by the back and crept round the house.

The incident had puzzled the Jetsons, especially that involuntary
flash of contempt that had come into Mrs. Hepworth's eyes. She had
always appeared to adore her husband, and of the two, if possible,
to be the one most in love with the other. They had no friends or
acquaintances except the Jetsons. No one else among their
neighbours had taken the trouble to call on them, and no stranger to
the suburb had, so far as was known, ever been seen in Laleham
Gardens.

Until one evening a little before Christmas.

Jetson was on his way home from his office in the Finchley Road.
There had been a mist hanging about all day, and with nightfall it
had settled down into a whitish fog. Soon after leaving the
Finchley Road, Jetson noticed in front of him a man wearing a long,
yellow mackintosh, and some sort of soft felt hat. He gave Jetson
the idea of being a sailor; it may have been merely the stiff,
serviceable mackintosh. At the corner of Laleham Gardens the man
turned, and glanced up at the name upon the lamp-post, so that
Jetson had a full view of him. Evidently it was the street for
which he was looking. Jetson, somewhat curious, the Hepworths'
house being still the only one occupied, paused at the corner, and
watched. The Hepworths' house was, of course, the only one in the
road that showed any light. The man, when he came to the gate,
struck a match for the purpose of reading the number. Satisfied it
was the house he wanted, he pushed open the gate and went up the
path.

But, instead of using the bell or knocker, Jetson was surprised to
hear him give three raps on the door with his stick. There was no
answer, and Jetson, whose interest was now thoroughly aroused,
crossed to the other corner, from where he could command a better
view. Twice the man repeated his three raps on the door, each time
a little louder, and the third time the door was opened. Jetson
could not tell by whom, for whoever it was kept behind it.

He could just see one wall of the passage, with a pair of old naval
cutlasses crossed above the picture of a three-masted schooner that
he knew hung there. The door was opened just sufficient, and the
man slipped in, and the door was closed behind him. Jetson had
turned to continue his way, when the fancy seized him to give one
glance back. The house was in complete darkness, though a moment
before Jetson was positive there had been a light in the ground
floor window.

It all sounded very important afterwards, but at the time there was
nothing to suggest to Jetson anything very much out of the common.
Because for six months no friend or relation had called to see them,
that was no reason why one never should. In the fog, a stranger may
have thought it simpler to knock at the door with his stick than to
fumble in search of a bell. The Hepworths lived chiefly in the room
at the back. The light in the drawing-room may have been switched
off for economy's sake. Jetson recounted the incident on reaching
home, not as anything remarkable, but just as one mentions an item
of gossip. The only one who appears to have attached any meaning to
the affair was Jetson's youngest daughter, then a girl of eighteen.
She asked one or two questions about the man, and, during the
evening, slipped out by herself and ran round to the Hepworths. She
found the house empty. At all events, she could obtain no answer,
and the place, back and front, seemed to her to be uncannily silent.

Jetson called the next morning, something of his daughter's
uneasiness having communicated itself to him. Mrs. Hepworth herself
opened the door to him. In his evidence at the trial, Jetson
admitted that her appearance had startled him. She seems to have
anticipated his questions by at once explaining that she had had
news of an unpleasant nature, and had been worrying over it all
night. Her husband had been called away suddenly to America, where
it would be necessary for her to join him as soon as possible. She
would come round to Jetson's office later in the day to make
arrangements about getting rid of the house and furniture.

The story seemed to reasonably account for the stranger's visit, and
Jetson, expressing his sympathy and promising all help in his power,
continued his way to the office. She called in the afternoon and
handed him over the keys, retaining one for herself. She wished the
furniture to be sold by auction, and he was to accept almost any
offer for the house. She would try and see him again before
sailing; if not, she would write him with her address. She was
perfectly cool and collected. She had called on his wife and
daughters in the afternoon, and had wished them good-bye.

Outside Jetson's office she hailed a cab, and returned in it to
Laleham Gardens to collect her boxes. The next time Jetson saw her
she was in the dock, charged with being an accomplice in the murder
of her husband.

* * *

The body had been discovered in a pond some hundred yards from the
unfinished end of Laleham Gardens. A house was in course of
erection on a neighbouring plot, and a workman, in dipping up a pail
of water, had dropped in his watch. He and his mate, worrying round
with a rake, had drawn up pieces of torn clothing, and this, of
course, had led to the pond being properly dragged. Otherwise the
discovery might never have been made.

The body, heavily weighted with a number of flat-irons fastened to
it by a chain and padlock, had sunk deep into the soft mud, and
might have remained there till it rotted. A valuable gold repeater,
that Jetson remembered young Hepworth having told him had been a
presentation to his father, was in its usual pocket, and a cameo
ring that Hepworth had always worn on his third finger was likewise
fished up from the mud. Evidently the murder belonged to the
category of crimes passionel. The theory of the prosecution was
that it had been committed by a man who, before her marriage, had
been Mrs. Hepworth's lover.

The evidence, contrasted with the almost spiritually beautiful face
of the woman in the dock, came as a surprise to everyone in court.
Originally connected with an English circus troupe touring in
Holland, she appears, about seventeen, to have been engaged as a
"song and dance artiste" at a particularly shady cafe chantant in
Rotterdam, frequented chiefly by sailors. From there a man, an
English sailor known as Charlie Martin, took her away, and for some
months she had lived with him at a small estaminet the other side of
the river. Later, they left Rotterdam and came to London, where
they took lodgings in Poplar, near to the docks.

It was from this address in Poplar that, some ten months before the
murder, she had married young Hepworth. What had become of Martin
was not known. The natural assumption was that, his money being
exhausted, he had returned to his calling, though his name, for some
reason, could not be found in any ship's list.

That he was one and the same with the man that Jetson had watched
till the door of the Hepworths' house had closed upon him there
could be no doubt. Jetson described him as a thick-set,
handsome-looking man, with a reddish beard and moustache. Earlier
in the day he had been seen at Hampstead, where he had dined at a
small coffee-shop in the High Street. The girl who had waited on
him had also been struck by the bold, piercing eyes and the curly
red beard. It had been an off-time, between two and three, when he
had dined there, and the girl admitted that she had found him a
"pleasant-spoken gentleman," and "inclined to be merry." He had
told her that he had arrived in England only three days ago, and
that he hoped that evening to see his sweetheart. He had
accompanied the words with a laugh, and the girl thought--though, of
course, this may have been after-suggestion--that an ugly look
followed the laugh.

One imagines that it was this man's return that had been the fear
constantly haunting young Hepworth. The three raps on the door, it
was urged by the prosecution, was a pre-arranged or pre-understood
signal, and the door had been opened by the woman. Whether the
husband was in the house, or whether they waited for him, could not
be said. He had been killed by a bullet entering through the back
of the neck; the man had evidently come prepared.

Ten days had elapsed between the murder and the finding of the body,
and the man was never traced. A postman had met him coming from the
neighbourhood of Laleham Gardens at about half-past nine. In the
fog, they had all but bumped into one another, and the man had
immediately turned away his face.

About the soft felt hat there was nothing to excite attention, but
the long, stiff, yellow mackintosh was quite unusual. The postman
had caught only a momentary glimpse of the face, but was certain it
was clean shaven. This made a sensation in court for the moment,
but only until the calling of the next witness. The charwoman
usually employed by the Hepworths had not been admitted to the house
on the morning of Mrs. Hepworth's departure. Mrs. Hepworth had met
her at the door and paid her a week's money in lieu of notice,
explaining to her that she would not be wanted any more. Jetson,
thinking he might possibly do better by letting the house furnished,
had sent for this woman, and instructed her to give the place a
thorough cleaning. Sweeping the carpet in the dining-room with a
dustpan and brush, she had discovered a number of short red hairs.
The man, before leaving the house, had shaved himself.

That he had still retained the long, yellow mackintosh may have been
with the idea of starting a false clue. Having served its purpose,
it could be discarded. The beard would not have been so easy. What
roundabout way he may have taken one cannot say, but it must have
been some time during the night or early morning that he reached
young Hepworth's office in Fenchurch Street. Mrs. Hepworth had
evidently provided him with the key.

There he seems to have hidden the hat and mackintosh and to have
taken in exchange some clothes belonging to the murdered man.
Hepworth's clerk, Ellenby, an elderly man--of the type that one
generally describes as of gentlemanly appearance--was accustomed to
his master being away unexpectedly on business, which was that of a
ships' furnisher. He always kept an overcoat and a bag ready packed
in the office. Missing them, Ellenby had assumed that his master
had been called away by an early train. He would have been worried
after a few days, but that he had received a telegram--as he then
supposed from his master--explaining that young Hepworth had gone to
Ireland and would be away for some days. It was nothing unusual for
Hepworth to be absent, superintending the furnishing of a ship, for
a fortnight at a time, and nothing had transpired in the office
necessitating special instructions. The telegram had been handed in
at Charing Cross, but the time chosen had been a busy period of the
day, and no one had any recollection of the sender. Hepworth's
clerk unhesitatingly identified the body as that of his employer,
for whom it was evident that he had entertained a feeling of
affection. About Mrs. Hepworth he said as little as he could.
While she was awaiting her trial it had been necessary for him to
see her once or twice with reference to the business. Previous to
this, he knew nothing about her.

The woman's own attitude throughout the trial had been quite
unexplainable. Beyond agreeing to a formal plea of "Not guilty,"
she had made no attempt to defend herself. What little assistance
her solicitors had obtained had been given them, not by the woman
herself, but by Hepworth's clerk, more for the sake of his dead
master than out of any sympathy towards the wife. She herself
appeared utterly indifferent. Only once had she been betrayed into
a momentary emotion. It was when her solicitors were urging her
almost angrily to give them some particulars upon a point they
thought might be helpful to her case.

"He's dead!" she had cried out almost with a note of exultation.
"Dead! Dead! What else matters?"

The next moment she had apologised for her outburst.

"Nothing can do any good," she had said. "Let the thing take its
course."

It was the astounding callousness of the woman that told against her
both with the judge and the jury. That shaving in the dining-room,
the murdered man's body not yet cold! It must have been done with
Hepworth's safety-razor. She must have brought it down to him,
found him a looking-glass, brought him soap and water and a towel,
afterwards removing all traces. Except those few red hairs that had
clung, unnoticed, to the carpet. That nest of flat-irons used to
weight the body! It must have been she who had thought of them.
The idea would never have occurred to a man. The chain and padlock
with which to fasten them. She only could have known that such
things were in the house. It must have been she who had planned the
exchange of clothes in Hepworth's office, giving him the key. She
it must have been who had thought of the pond, holding open the door
while the man had staggered out under his ghastly burden; waited,
keeping watch, listening to hear the splash.

Evidently it had been her intention to go off with the murderer--to
live with him! That story about America. If all had gone well, it
would have accounted for everything. After leaving Laleham Gardens
she had taken lodgings in a small house in Kentish Town under the
name of Howard, giving herself out to be a chorus singer, her
husband being an actor on tour. To make the thing plausible, she
had obtained employment in one of the pantomimes. Not for a moment
had she lost her head. No one had ever called at her lodgings, and
there had come no letters for her. Every hour of her day could be
accounted for. Their plans must have been worked out over the
corpse of her murdered husband. She was found guilty of being an
"accessory after the fact," and sentenced to fifteen years' penal
servitude.

That brought the story up to eleven years ago. After the trial,
interested in spite of himself, my friend had ferreted out some
further particulars. Inquiries at Liverpool had procured him the
information that Hepworth's father, a shipowner in a small way, had
been well known and highly respected. He was retired from business
when he died, some three years previous to the date of the murder.
His wife had survived him by only a few months. Besides Michael,
the murdered son, there were two other children--an elder brother,
who was thought to have gone abroad to one of the colonies, and a
sister who had married a French naval officer. Either they had not
heard of the case or had not wished to have their names dragged into
it. Young Michael had started life as an architect, and was
supposed to have been doing well, but after the death of his parents
had disappeared from the neighbourhood, and, until the trial, none
of his acquaintances up North ever knew what had become of him.

But a further item of knowledge that my friend's inquiries had
elicited had somewhat puzzled him. Hepworth's clerk, Ellenby, had
been the confidential clerk of Hepworth's father! He had entered
the service of the firm as a boy; and when Hepworth senior retired,
Ellenby--with the old gentleman's assistance--had started in
business for himself as a ships' furnisher! Nothing of all this
came out at the trial. Ellenby had not been cross-examined. There
was no need for it. But it seemed odd, under all the circumstances,
that he had not volunteered the information. It may, of course,
have been for the sake of the brother and sister. Hepworth is a
common enough name in the North. He may have hoped to keep the
family out of connection with the case.

As regards the woman, my friend could learn nothing further beyond
the fact that, in her contract with the music-hall agent in
Rotterdam, she had described herself as the daughter of an English
musician, and had stated that both her parents were dead. She may
have engaged herself without knowing the character of the hall, and
the man, Charlie Martin, with his handsome face and pleasing sailor
ways, and at least an Englishman, may have seemed to her a welcome
escape.

She may have been passionately fond of him, and young Hepworth-
-crazy about her, for she was beautiful enough to turn any man's
head--may in Martin's absence have lied to her, told her he was
dead--lord knows what!--to induce her to marry him. The murder may
have seemed to her a sort of grim justice.

But even so, her cold-blooded callousness was surely abnormal! She
had married him, lived with him for nearly a year. To the Jetsons
she had given the impression of being a woman deeply in love with
her husband. It could not have been mere acting kept up day after
day.

"There was something else." We were discussing the case in my
friend's chambers. His brief of eleven years ago was open before
him. He was pacing up and down with his hands in his pockets,
thinking as he talked. "Something that never came out. There was a
curious feeling she gave me in that moment when sentence was
pronounced upon her. It was as if, instead of being condemned, she
had triumphed. Acting! If she had acted during the trial,
pretended remorse, even pity, I could have got her off with five
years. She seemed to be unable to disguise the absolute physical
relief she felt at the thought that he was dead, that his hand would
never again touch her. There must have been something that had
suddenly been revealed to her, something that had turned her love to
hate.

"There must be something fine about the man, too." That was another
suggestion that came to him as he stood staring out of the window
across the river. "She's paid and has got her receipt, but he is
still 'wanted.' He is risking his neck every evening he watches for
the raising of that blind."

His thought took another turn.

"Yet how could he have let her go through those ten years of living
death while he walked the streets scot free? Some time during the
trial--the evidence piling up against her day by day--why didn't he
come forward, if only to stand beside her? Get himself hanged, if
only out of mere decency?"

He sat down, took the brief up in his hand without looking at it.

"Or was that the reward that she claimed? That he should wait,
keeping alive the one hope that would make the suffering possible to
her? Yes," he continued, musing, "I can see a man who cared for a
woman taking that as his punishment."

Now that his interest in the case had been revived he seemed unable
to keep it out of his mind. Since our joint visit I had once or
twice passed through the street by myself, and on the last occasion
had again seen the raising of the blind. It obsessed him--the
desire to meet the man face to face. A handsome, bold, masterful
man, he conceived him. But there must be something more for such a
woman to have sold her soul--almost, one might say--for the sake of
him.

There was just one chance of succeeding. Each time he had come from
the direction of the Edgware Road. By keeping well out of sight at
the other end of the street, and watching till he entered it, one
might time oneself to come upon him just under the lamp. He would
hardly be likely to turn and go back; that would be to give himself
away. He would probably content himself with pretending to be like
ourselves, merely hurrying through, and in his turn watching till we
had disappeared.

Fortune seemed inclined to favour us. About the usual time the
blind was gently raised, and very soon afterwards there came round
the corner the figure of a man. We entered the street ourselves a
few seconds later, and it seemed likely that, as we had planned, we
should come face to face with him under the gaslight. He walked
towards us, stooping and with bent head. We expected him to pass
the house by. To our surprise he stopped when he came to it, and
pushed open the gate. In another moment we should have lost all
chance of seeing anything more of him except his bent back. With a
couple of strides my friend was behind him. He laid his hand on the
man's shoulder and forced him to turn round. It was an old,
wrinkled face with gentle, rather watery eyes.

We were both so taken aback that for a moment we could say nothing.
My friend stammered out an apology about having mistaken the house,
and rejoined me. At the corner we burst out laughing almost
simultaneously. And then my friend suddenly stopped and stared at
me.

"Hepworth's old clerk!" he said. "Ellenby!"

* * *

It seemed to him monstrous. The man had been more than a clerk.
The family had treated him as a friend. Hepworth's father had set
him up in business. For the murdered lad he had had a sincere
attachment; he had left that conviction on all of them. What was
the meaning of it?

A directory was on the mantelpiece. It was the next afternoon. I
had called upon him in his chambers. It was just an idea that came
to me. I crossed over and opened it, and there was his name,
"Ellenby and Co., Ships' Furnishers," in a court off the Minories.

Was he helping her for the sake of his dead master--trying to get
her away from the man. But why? The woman had stood by and watched
the lad murdered. How could he bear even to look on her again?

Unless there had been that something that had not come out--
something he had learnt later--that excused even that monstrous
callousness of hers.

Yet what could there be? It had all been so planned, so
cold-blooded. That shaving in the dining-room! It was that seemed
most to stick in his throat. She must have brought him down a
looking-glass; there was not one in the room. Why couldn't he have
gone upstairs into the bathroom, where Hepworth always shaved
himself, where he would have found everything to his hand?

He had been moving about the room, talking disjointedly as he paced,
and suddenly he stopped and looked at me.

"Why in the dining-room?" he demanded of me.

He was jingling some keys in his pocket. It was a habit of his when
cross-examining, and I felt as if somehow I knew; and, without
thinking--so it seemed to me--I answered him.

"Perhaps," I said, "it was easier to bring a razor down than to
carry a dead man up."

He leant with his arms across the table, his eyes glittering with
excitement.

"Can't you see it?" he said. "That little back parlour with its
fussy ornaments. The three of them standing round the table,
Hepworth's hands nervously clutching a chair. The reproaches, the
taunts, the threats. Young Hepworth--he struck everyone as a weak
man, a man physically afraid--white, stammering, not knowing which
way to look. The woman's eyes turning from one to the other. That
flash of contempt again--she could not help it--followed, worse
still, by pity. If only he could have answered back, held his own!
If only he had not been afraid! And then that fatal turning away
with a sneering laugh one imagines, the bold, dominating eyes no
longer there to cower him.

"That must have been the moment. The bullet, if you remember,
entered through the back of the man's neck. Hepworth must always
have been picturing to himself this meeting--tenants of garden
suburbs do not carry loaded revolvers as a habit--dwelling upon it
till he had worked himself up into a frenzy of hate and fear. Weak
men always fly to extremes. If there was no other way, he would
kill him.

"Can't you hear the silence? After the reverberations had died
away! And then they are both down on their knees, patting him,
feeling for his heart. The man must have gone down like a felled
ox; there were no traces of blood on the carpet. The house is far
from any neighbour; the shot in all probability has not been heard.
If only they can get rid of the body! The pond--not a hundred yards
away!"

He reached for the brief, still lying among his papers; hurriedly
turned the scored pages.

"What easier? A house being built on the very next plot.
Wheelbarrows to be had for the taking. A line of planks reaching
down to the edge. Depth of water where the body was discovered four
feet six inches. Nothing to do but just tip up the barrow.

"Think a minute. Must weigh him down, lest he rise to accuse us;
weight him heavily, so that he will sink lower and lower into the
soft mud, lie there till he rots.

"Think again. Think it out to the end. Suppose, in spite of all
our precautions, he does rise? Suppose the chain slips? The
workmen going to and fro for water--suppose they do discover him?

"He is lying on his back, remember. They would have turned him over
to feel for his heart. Have closed his eyes, most probably, not
liking their stare.

"It would be the woman who first thought of it. She has seen them
both lying with closed eyes beside her. It may have always been in
her mind, the likeness between them. With Hepworth's watch in his
pocket, Hepworth's ring on his finger! If only it was not for the
beard--that fierce, curling, red beard!

"They creep to the window and peer out. Fog still thick as soup.
Not a soul, not a sound. Plenty of time.

"Then to get away, to hide till one is sure. Put on the mackintosh.
A man in a yellow mackintosh may have been seen to enter; let him be
seen to go away. In some dark corner or some empty railway carriage
take it off and roll it up. Then make for the office. Wait there
for Ellenby. True as steel, Ellenby; good business man. Be guided
by Ellenby."

He flung the brief from him with a laugh.

"Why, there's not a missing link!" he cried. "And to think that not
a fool among us ever thought of it!"

"Everything fitting into its place," I suggested, "except young
Hepworth. Can you see him, from your description of him, sitting
down and coolly elaborating plans for escape, the corpse of the
murdered man stretched beside him on the hearthrug?"

"No," he answered. "But I can see her doing it, a woman who for
week after week kept silence while we raged and stormed at her, a
woman who for three hours sat like a statue while old Cutbush
painted her to a crowded court as a modern Jezebel, who rose up from
her seat when that sentence of fifteen years' penal servitude was
pronounced upon her with a look of triumph in her eyes, and walked
out of court as if she had been a girl going to meet her lover.

"I'll wager," he added, "it was she who did the shaving. Hepworth
would have cut him, even with a safety-razor."

"It must have been the other one, Martin," I said, "that she
loathed. That almost exultation at the thought that he was dead," I
reminded him.

"Yes," he mused. "She made no attempt to disguise it. Curious
there having been that likeness between them." He looked at his
watch. "Do you care to come with me?" he said.

"Where are you going?" I asked him.

"We may just catch him," he answered. "Ellenby and Co."

* * *

The office was on the top floor of an old-fashioned house in a
cul-de-sac off the Minories. Mr. Ellenby was out, so the lanky
office-boy informed us, but would be sure to return before evening;
and we sat and waited by the meagre fire till, as the dusk was
falling, we heard his footsteps on the creaking stairs.

He halted a moment in the doorway, recognising us apparently without
surprise; and then, with a hope that we had not been kept waiting
long, he led the way into an inner room.

"I do not suppose you remember me," said my friend, as soon as the
door was closed. "I fancy that, until last night, you never saw me
without my wig and gown. It makes a difference. I was Mrs.
Hepworth's senior counsel."

It was unmistakable, the look of relief that came into the old, dim
eyes. Evidently the incident of the previous evening had suggested
to him an enemy.

"You were very good," he murmured. "Mrs. Hepworth was overwrought
at the time, but she was very grateful, I know, for all your
efforts."

I thought I detected a faint smile on my friend's lips.

"I must apologise for my rudeness to you of last night," he
continued. "I expected, when I took the liberty of turning you
round, that I was going to find myself face to face with a much
younger man."

"I took you to be a detective," answered Ellenby, in his soft,
gentle voice. "You will forgive me, I'm sure. I am rather short-
sighted. Of course, I can only conjecture, but if you will take my
word, I can assure you that Mrs. Hepworth has never seen or heard
from the man Charlie Martin since the date of"--he hesitated a
moment--"of the murder."

"It would have been difficult," agreed my friend, "seeing that
Charlie Martin lies buried in Highgate Cemetery."

Old as he was, he sprang from his chair, white and trembling.

"What have you come here for?" he demanded.

"I took more than a professional interest in the case," answered my
friend. "Ten years ago I was younger than I am now. It may have
been her youth--her extreme beauty. I think Mrs. Hepworth, in
allowing her husband to visit her--here where her address is known
to the police, and watch at any moment may be set upon her--is
placing him in a position of grave danger. If you care to lay
before me any facts that will allow me to judge of the case, I am
prepared to put my experience, and, if need be, my assistance, at
her service."

His self-possession had returned to him.

"If you will excuse me," he said, "I will tell the boy that he can
go."

We heard him, a moment later, turn the key in the outer door; and
when he came back and had made up the fire, he told us the beginning
of the story.

The name of the man buried in Highgate Cemetery was Hepworth, after
all. Not Michael, but Alex, the elder brother.

From boyhood he had been violent, brutal, unscrupulous. Judging
from Ellenby's story, it was difficult to accept him as a product of
modern civilisation. Rather he would seem to have been a throwback
to some savage, buccaneering ancestor. To expect him to work, while
he could live in vicious idleness at somebody else's expense, was
found to be hopeless. His debts were paid for about the third or
fourth time, and he was shipped off to the Colonies. Unfortunately,
there were no means of keeping him there. So soon as the money
provided him had been squandered, he returned, demanding more by
menaces and threats. Meeting with unexpected firmness, he seems to
have regarded theft and forgery as the only alternative left to him.
To save him from punishment and the family name from disgrace, his
parents' savings were sacrificed. It was grief and shame that,
according to Ellenby, killed them both within a few months of one
another.

Deprived by this blow of what he no doubt had come to consider his
natural means of support, and his sister, fortunately for herself,
being well out of his reach, he next fixed upon his brother Michael
as his stay-by. Michael, weak, timid, and not perhaps without some
remains of boyish affection for a strong, handsome, elder brother,
foolishly yielded. The demands, of course, increased, until, in the
end, it came almost as a relief when the man's vicious life led to
his getting mixed up with a crime of a particularly odious nature.
He was anxious now for his own sake to get away, and Michael, with
little enough to spare for himself, provided him with the means, on
the solemn understanding that he would never return.

But the worry and misery of it all had left young Michael a broken
man. Unable to concentrate his mind any longer upon his profession,
his craving was to get away from all his old associations--to make a
fresh start in life. It was Ellenby who suggested London and the
ship furnishing business, where Michael's small remaining capital
would be of service. The name of Hepworth would be valuable in
shipping circles, and Ellenby, arguing this consideration, but
chiefly with the hope of giving young Michael more interest in the
business, had insisted that the firm should be Hepworth and Co.

They had not been started a year before the man returned, as usual
demanding more money. Michael, acting under Ellenby's guidance,
refused in terms that convinced his brother that the game of
bullying was up. He waited a while, and then wrote pathetically
that he was ill and starving. If only for the sake of his young
wife, would not Michael come and see them?

This was the first they had heard of his marriage. There was just a
faint hope that it might have effected a change, and Michael,
against Ellenby's advice, decided to go. In a miserable
lodging-house in the East End he found the young wife, but not his
brother, who did not return till he was on the point of leaving. In
the interval the girl seems to have confided her story to Michael.

She had been a singer, engaged at a music-hall in Rotterdam. There
Alex Hepworth, calling himself Charlie Martin, had met her and made
love to her. When he chose, he could be agreeable enough, and no
doubt her youth and beauty had given to his protestations, for the
time being, a genuine ring of admiration and desire. It was to
escape from her surroundings, more than anything else, that she had
consented. She was little more than a child, and anything seemed
preferable to the nightly horror to which her life exposed her.

He had never married her. At least, that was her belief at the
time. During his first drunken bout he had flung it in her face
that the form they had gone through was mere bunkum. Unfortunately
for her, this was a lie. He had always been coolly calculating. It
was probably with the idea of a safe investment that he had seen to
it that the ceremony had been strictly legal.

Her life with him, so soon as the first novelty of her had worn off,
had been unspeakable. The band that she wore round her neck was to
hide where, in a fit of savagery, because she had refused to earn
money for him on the streets, he had tried to cut her throat. Now
that she had got back to England she intended to leave him. If he
followed and killed her she did not care.

It was for her sake that young Hepworth eventually offered to help
his brother again, on the condition that he would go away by
himself. To this the other agreed. He seems to have given a short
display of remorse. There must have been a grin on his face as he
turned away. His cunning eyes had foreseen what was likely to
happen. The idea of blackmail was no doubt in his mind from the
beginning. With the charge of bigamy as a weapon in his hand, he
might rely for the rest of his life upon a steady and increasing
income.

Michael saw his brother off as a second-class passenger on a ship
bound for the Cape. Of course, there was little chance of his
keeping his word, but there was always the chance of his getting
himself knocked on the head in some brawl. Anyhow, he would be out
of the way for a season, and the girl, Lola, would be left. A month
later he married her, and four months after that received a letter
from his brother containing messages to Mrs. Martin, "from her
loving husband, Charlie," who hoped before long to have the pleasure
of seeing her again.

Inquiries through the English Consul in Rotterdam proved that the
threat was no mere bluff. The marriage had been legal and binding.

What happened on the night of the murder, was very much as my friend
had reconstructed it. Ellenby, reaching the office at his usual
time the next morning, had found Hepworth waiting for him. There he
had remained in hiding until one morning, with dyed hair and a
slight moustache, he had ventured forth.

Had the man's death been brought about by any other means, Ellenby
would have counselled his coming forward and facing his trial, as he
himself was anxious to do; but, viewed in conjunction with the
relief the man's death must have been to both of them, that loaded
revolver was too suggestive of premeditation. The isolation of the
house, that conveniently near pond, would look as if thought of
beforehand. Even if pleading extreme provocation, Michael escaped
the rope, a long term of penal servitude would be inevitable.

Nor was it certain that even then the woman would go free. The
murdered man would still, by a strange freak, be her husband; the
murderer--in the eye of the law--her lover.

Her passionate will had prevailed. Young Hepworth had sailed for
America. There he had no difficulty in obtaining employment--of
course, under another name--in an architects office; and later had
set up for himself. Since the night of the murder they had not seen
each other till some three weeks ago.

* * *

I never saw the woman again. My friend, I believe, called on her.
Hepworth had already returned to America, and my friend had
succeeded in obtaining for her some sort of a police permit that
practically left her free.

Sometimes of an evening I find myself passing through the street.
And always I have the feeling of having blundered into an empty
theatre--where the play is ended.

-THE END-
Jerome K Jerome's short story: The Street Of The blank Wall

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