Chapter 2

LOCKED OUT.

At first I could not make out if it was a man or woman or what it
was. But at last I decided that it was a man. I never saw such
clothes. Whether it was the darkness, or his costume, or what it was,
I cannot say, but he seemed to me to be surprisingly tall. And thin!
And old! Nothing less than a walking skeleton he seemed to me, the
cheekbones were starting through his skin which was shrivelled and
yellow with age. He wore what looked to me, in that light, like a
whole length piece of double width yellow canvas cloth. It was wrapped
round and round him, as, I am told, it is round mummies. A fold was
drawn up over his head, so as to make a kind of hood, and from under
this his face looked out.

Fancy coming on such a figure, on a dark night, all of a sudden, and
you can guess what my feelings were. I thought I should have dropped.
I had to catch tight hold of Tom’s arm.

“Tom,” I gasped, “what--whatever is it?”

“Come on,” he muttered. “Let’s get out of this. Looney, he looks to
me.”

Lunatic or not, he did not mean that we should get away from him quite
so easily. He took Emily by the shoulder--you should have heard the
scream she gave; if it had been louder it would have frightened the
neighbourhood. But the lunatic, or whatever the creature was, did not
seem to be in the least put out. He held her with both his hands, one
on either shoulder, and turned her round to him, and stared at her in
the most disgraceful way. He put his face so close to hers that I
thought he was going to bite her, or something awful. But no; all at
once he thrust her aside as if she was nothing at all.

“It is not she,” he murmured, half to himself, as it seemed, and half
to us.

And before I could guess what he was going to do, he laid his hands on
me. It was a wonder I did not faint right then and there. He gripped
my shoulders so tight that I felt as if he had me screwed in a vice,
and for days after my skin was black and blue. He thrust his face so
close to mine that I felt his breath upon my cheeks. There was an odd
smell about it which made me dizzy. He had little eyes, which were set
far back in his head. I had a notion they were short-sighted, he
seemed to have to peer so long and closely. At last his lips moved.

“It is she,” he said, in the same half-stifled voice in which he had
spoken before. He had a queer accent. There was no mistaking what he
said, but it was certain that his tongue was not an Englishman’s. “You
will see me again--yes! Soon! You will remember me?”

Remember him? I should never forget him, never! Not if I lived to be
as old as Methuselah. That hideous, hollow-cheeked, saffron-hued face
would haunt me in my dreams. I do have dreams, pretty bad ones
sometimes. I should see him in them many a time. My head whirled
round. The next thing I knew I was in Tom’s arms. He was holding me up
against Firandolo’s window. He spoke to me.

“It’s all right now; he’s gone.”

I sighed, and looked round. The wretch had vanished. What had become
of him I did not ask, or care to know. It was sufficient for me that
he had vanished. As I drew myself up I glanced round towards the
restaurant door. Mr. Isaac Rudd’s face was pressed against the glass.
Unless I was mistaken, when he perceived I saw him he drew back
quickly. I slipped my arm through Tom’s.

“Let’s get away from here; let’s hurry home as fast as we can.”

Off we went, we three. Emily began to talk. Tom and I were silent. It
was still as much as I could do to walk; I fancy Tom was thinking.

“It is a wonder I didn’t faint as well as you; if you hadn’t I should.
But when you went I felt that it would never do for two of us to go,
so I held myself tight in. Did you ever see anything like that awful
man? I don’t believe he was alive; at least, I shouldn’t if it wasn’t
for the way in which he pinched my shoulders. I shall be ashamed to
look at them when I’ve got my dress off, I know I shall. My skin’s so
delicate that the least mark shows. What was he dressed in? And who
could the creature be? I believe he was something supernatural; there
was nothing natural about him that I could see. Then his eye! He
looked a thousand years old if he looked a day.”

She ceased. She glanced behind her once or twice. She drew closer to
Tom. When she spoke again it was in a lower tone of voice.

“Mr. Cooper, do you mind my taking your arm? There’s--there’s someone
following us now.”

Tom looked round. As he did so, two men came past us, one by me, the
other one by Emily. The one who passed me was so close that his sleeve
brushed mine; as he went he turned and stared at me with might and
main. He was short, but very fat. He was shabbily dressed, and wore a
cloth cap slouched over his eyes. When he had gone a yard or two the
other man fell in at his side. They talked together as they slouched
along; we could not but see that, while both of them were short, one
was as thin as the other was stout.

“Are you sure they’ve been following us?” whispered Tom to Emily.

“Certain. They’ve been sticking close at our heels ever since we came
away from Firandolo’s.”

The fact was put beyond dispute before we had gone another fifty
yards. The two men drew up close in front of us, in such a way that it
would have been difficult for us to pass without pushing them aside.

“Which of you two ladies is Miss Blyth?” asked the stout man, in the
most impudent manner.

On a sudden I was becoming the object of undesired attention which I
did not at all understand, and liked, if possible, still less. The
fellow looked us up and down, as if we had been objects offered for
sale.

“What has it to do with you?” returned Tom. “Who are you, anyhow?”

The thin man answered; the stout man had spoken in a shrill squeaky
treble, he had the deepest possible bass.

“We’re the young lady’s friends; her two friends. Ain’t that gospel,
Sam?”

“It’s that, William; it’s gospel truth. Truer friends than us she’ll
never have, nor none what’s more ready to do her a good turn.”

“Not if she was to spend the rest of her days sailing round the world
looking for ’em, she’d never find ’em, that she wouldn’t. All we ask
is for her to treat us as her friends.” The thin man spat upon the
pavement. “Now then, out with it; which of you two ladies is Miss
Blyth?”

“I’m not,” cried Emily.

Which I thought was distinctly mean of her, because, of course, it was
as good as saying that I was. Once more the stout man looked me up and
down.

“You’re her, are you? So I thought. The other’s too pretty, by chalks.
You’re a chip of the old block, and there wasn’t no beauty thrown away
on him; plain he was, as ever I saw a man; and plainer.”

The fellow was ruder than ever. I am aware that Emily Purvis is a
beauty, and that I am not, but at the same time one does not expect to
be stopped and told so by two perfect strangers, at that hour of the
night.

“For goodness’ sake,” I said to Tom, “let’s get away from these
dreadful persons as fast as we possibly can.”

I made him come. The fat man called after us--in his squeaky treble.

“Dreadful, are we? Maybe you’ll change your mind before you’ve done.
Don’t you be so fast in judging of your true friends, it don’t become
a young woman. There’s more dreadful persons than us about, as perhaps
you’ll find.”

“It is to be hoped,” I observed to Tom, and paying no attention
whatever to Emily Purvis, who I knew was smiling on the other side of
him, “that we shall meet no more objectionable characters before we
get safely in.”

“They’re friends of yours, my dear.”

This was Emily.

“I don’t see how you make that out, seeing that I never saw them
before, and never want to again.”

“Some of us have more friends than we know, my love.” Her love! “We’ve
seen four of yours already; I shouldn’t be surprised if we saw another
still before we’re in.”

As it happened, in a manner of speaking, it turned out that she was
right; though, of course, to speak of the creature we encountered,
even sarcastically, as a friend of mine, would be absurd. We were
going along the Fenton Road. As we were passing a street, which
branched off upon our right, there popped out of it, for all the world
as if he had been waiting for us to come along, a man in a long black
coat, reaching nearly to his heels, and a felt hat, which was crammed
down so tight, that it almost covered his face as well as his head. I
thought at first he was a beggar, or some object of the tramp kind,
because he fell in at our side, and moved along with us, as some
persistent beggars will do. But one glance at what could be seen of
his features was sufficient to show that he was something more out of
the common than that. He had a round face; almond-shaped eyes which
looked out of narrow slits; a flat nose; a mouth which seemed to reach
from ear to ear. There was no mistaking that this was a case of
another ugly foreigner. The consciousness that he was near made me
shudder; as he trudged along beside us I went uncomfortable all over.

“Go away! Make him go away!” I said to Tom.

Tom stood still.

“Now then, off you go! We’ve nothing for you. The sooner you try it
off on somebody else, the less of your valuable time you’ll waste.”

Tom took him for a beggar. But he was wrong, and I was right; the man
was not a beggar.

“Which is little lady?”

I don’t pretend that was exactly what he said. Thank goodness, I am
English, and I know no language but my own, and that is quite enough
for me, so it would be impossible for me to reproduce precisely a
foreign person’s observations; but that is what he meant. Tom was
angry.

“Little lady? What little lady? There’s no lady here, big or little,
who has anything to do with you; so, now then, you just clear off.”

But the man did nothing of the kind. He hopped to Emily, and back
again to me, peering at us both out of his narrow eyes.

“Which of you is Missee Blyth?”

“Miss Blyth! Is the whole world, all at once, on the look-out for Miss
Blyth? What is the meaning of this little game? You, there, hook it!”

But instead of hooking it, to use Tom’s own language, and gentlemen
will use slang, the man grew more and more insistent. He must have
gone backwards and forwards between Emily and me half-a-dozen times.

“Quick! Tellee me! Which is Missee Blyth? Quick, quick! tellee me! I
have something to give to Missee Blyth.”

“I am Miss Blyth.”

I did not suppose, for an instant, that he really had anything to give
me. But the man seemed to be in such a state of agitation, that I felt
that perhaps the best way to put an end to what was becoming a painful
situation would be for me to declare myself without delay. However, to
my surprise, hardly were the words out of my lips, than the man came
rushing to me, thrusting something into my hand. From what I could
feel of it, it appeared to be something small and hard, wrapped in a
scrap of paper. But I had no chance of discovering anything further,
because, before I had a chance of even peeping, the two short men, the
fat and thin one, came rushing up, goodness only knows from where, and
I heard the thin one call out, in his deep bass voice, to the other:

“He’s given it her--I saw him! At her, Sam, before she has a chance of
pouching it.”

The stout man caught me by the wrist, gave it a twist, which hurt me
dreadfully, and, before I could say Jack Robinson, he had the little
packet out of my hand. It was like a conjuror’s trick, it all took
place so rapidly, and before I had the least notion of what was going
to happen. The foreign person, however, seemed to understand what had
occurred better than I did. Clearly he did not want courage. With a
sort of snarl he sprang at the stout man, and with both hands took him
by the throat, as, I have heard, bulldogs have a way of doing. The
stout man did not relish the attack at all.

“Pull him off me, William,” he squeaked.

The thin man endeavoured to do as he was told. And, in a moment, out
in the open street there, the most dreadful fight was going on. What
it was all about I had not the faintest idea, but they attacked each
other like wild beasts. The foreign person did not seem to be at all
dismayed by the odds of two to one. He assailed them with frightful
violence.

Plainly it would be as much as they could do to deal with him between
them. I certainly expected every second to see someone killed. Emily
went off her head with terror. She rushed, screaming up the street.
Tom dashed after her, whether to stop her or not I could not tell.
And, of course, I rushed after Tom. And the three men were left alone
to fight it out together.

Emily never drew breath till we were quite close to Cardew &
Slaughter’s. Then a church clock rang out. It struck the half-hour. It
might have struck her, she stopped so suddenly.

“Half-past eleven!” she cried. “My gracious! whatever shall we do?”

It was a rule of the firm that the assistants were to be in by
half-past ten. Between the half-hour and the quarter there was a fine
of sixpence, and between the quarter and the hour one of half-a-crown.
After eleven no one was admitted at all. The doors had been closed for
more than half-an-hour! We stood, panting for breath, staring at one
another. Emily began to cry.

“I daren’t stop out in the streets all night--I daren’t!”

“I know a trick worth two of that,” declared Tom. “There’s a way in
which is known to one or two of us; I’ve had to use it before, and I
daresay I can use it again.”

“It’s all very well for you,” cried Emily. “But we can’t climb
windows; and, if we could, there are no windows for us to climb.”

Tom hesitated. I could see he did not like to leave us in the lurch.
The gentlemen slept right up at the other end of the building; there
was no connection between his end and ours. I had heard of what Tom
hinted at before; but then things are always different with gentlemen.
As Emily said, for the ladies there was no way in but the door.
Somehow I felt that, after all we had gone through, I did not mean to
be trampled on.

“You go, Tom, and get in as best you can. Emily and I will get in too,
or I’ll know the reason why.”

Away went Tom; and off started Emily and I to try our luck. She was
not sanguine.

“They’ll never let us in, never!”

“We’ll see about that.”

I gritted my teeth, as I have a trick of doing when I am in earnest. I
was in earnest then. It is owing to the firm’s artfulness that there
are no bells or knockers on the doors leading to the assistants’
quarters. When they are open you can get in; when they are closed
there are no means provided to call attention to the fact that you
require admission. They had been unloading some packing-cases. I
picked up two heavy pieces of wood which had been left lying about;
with them I started to hammer at the door. How I did hammer! I kept it
up ever so long; but no one paid the slightest heed. I began to
despair. Emily was crying all the while. I felt like crying with her.
Instead, I gritted my teeth still more, and I hammered, and I
hammered. At last a window was opened overhead, and the housekeeper,
Mrs. Galloway, put her head out.

“Who’s that making this disgraceful noise at this hour of the night?”

“It’s Miss Purvis and Miss Blyth. Come down and let us in; we’ve been
nearly robbed and murdered.”

“I daresay! You don’t enter this house to-night; you know the rules.
And if you don’t take yourselves off this instant I’ll send for the
police.”

“Send for the police, that’s what we want you to do. The police will
soon see if you won’t let us in.”

Mrs. Galloway’s head disappeared; the window was banged. Emily cried
louder than ever.

“I told you she’d never let us in.”

“We’ll see if she won’t.”

Off I started again to hammer. Presently steps were heard coming along
the passage. Mrs. Galloway’s voice came from the other side of the
door.

“Stop that disgraceful noise! Go away! Do you hear me, go away!”

“If we do it will be to fetch the police. They’ll soon show you if you
can keep us out all night when we’ve been nearly robbed and murdered.”

The door was opened perhaps three inches; as I believed, upon the
chain. I knew Mrs. Galloway’s little tricks. But if it was upon the
chain what occurred was odd. Someone came hurrying up the steps behind
us. To my amazement it was the dreadful old man in the yellow canvas
cloth. I was too bewildered to even try to guess where he had come
from; I had never supposed that he, or anybody else, was near. He
pointed to the door.

“Open!” he said, in that queer, half-stifled voice in which he had
spoken to me before.

The door was opened wide, though how the housekeeper had had time to
remove the chain, if it was chained, was more than I could understand.
Emily and I marched into the passage--sneaked, I daresay, would have
been the better word. As I went the stranger slipped something into my
hand; a hard something, wrapped in a scrap of paper.