# The Kit-Bag (Marsh)

Extracted from Windsor magazine, v. 17 1902-03, pp. 298–309. Accompanying illustrations by T. Walter Wilson, R.I., may be omitted.
THE KIT-BAG
By Richard Marsh
WHENEVER I see a kit-bag, a curious feeling comes all over me.
I was in the Metropolitan Police Force over thirty years. I have now retired on a sergeant's pension. During the whole time I was a policeman I only once came into personal contact with anything very remarkable—I mean, out of the ordinary run of "drunks," assaults, felonies, burglaries, and that kind of thing. On that occasion a kit-bag played a pretty conspicuous part. So, to this hour, whenever I see one, I look at it out of the corner of my eye, as it were, and I ask myself a question.
I had then joined six years. I was attached to the Hampstead division. At that time I was on night duty. The particular night on which it happened was that of the sixth of September. A Tuesday it was. I am never likely to forget it. It was nasty weather. There had been a deal of wet during the day; and though when I left home it was not actually raining, there was a touch of fog about, and it was colder than one likes to have it at that time of the year, especially when one has to be out and about in it all night. I had had home worries. I left home, in consequence, a little later than I cared to do, for it was a good step from my place to the station-house. I was not sure my watch was quite right. Fearing that it might be later than I supposed, as I passed, I looked in at St. John's Wood railway station to compare their clock with mine. The last train must have just come in. They seemed to be on the point of closing the premises. The booking-office was empty, with the exception of one thing, a kit-bag. It stood against the wall close to the glass doors which led into the refreshment-room. To the best of my belief, that was the first time I had ever seen a thing of the kind—that is, to notice it. I fancy they must have been novelties in those days. And I've never seen a larger one than that was since. It looked brand new. I don't know how it was, but, as I said to my wife afterwards, directly I saw it I felt uncomfortable. I can't explain it; I am not trying to; but there the feeling was.
I left the bag still in sole possession of the booking-office and hurried off to the station-house, for, as it turned out, my watch was a trifle slow. I went out with the rest of the chaps who were on the night shift.
Part of my beat lay past a row of houses which was called Quarnley Terrace. Decent sized houses they were, standing back from the road. A strip of ground was in front of each, shut off from the public by a low stuccoed wall, surmounted by stuccoed pilasters. This was backed—at least, in most cases—by a tree or two, some shrubs, and that kind of thing, the whole forming an effectual screen.
My wife had been ill all day, and when I came away was worse. If I had not known that it would mean trouble, I should have stayed with her. Altogether, I was in a pretty state of mind; because, after all, though some people do not seem to think so, a policeman is a man. I had arranged with them at home that I should be at certain points at certain times. If anything happened, they were to bring me news at once. One of these points was the corner of Quarnley Terrace. I was hanging about there, all of a tremor of anxiety, when I saw, hurrying up Acacia Road, a girl. It was Lizzie, my wife's sister. In another half-minute she was at my side, all out of breath.
"It's all right—it's a boy," she said.
"A boy!" I gasped, for the news sort of caught me in the wind. "And how's Mary?"
"She's all right. They're both of them all right—doing famously. Couldn't be better, the doctor says. But I can't stop; I only ran out to let you know."
She did not stop—not longer than to exchange another dozen words. Presently she was scurrying back again, and I was marching along past Quarnley Terrace.
You feel queer the first time you are a father. I dare say when you have had a dozen or so, the addition of one or two more does not much matter. But the first time you know that a baby has just been born to you, it is different. At least, it was with me. You feel, all at once, that you have a new outlook on to the world. I know I did. What with thinking of the baby; and what I should call him; and whether I should make a policeman of him when his time came; and wondering how Mary was; and what she would say to me in the morning; and what I should say to her—I can tell you that I was in a nice sort of a fluster. My thoughts were not much occupied with the preservation of law and order. I dare say that I should have walked on and on, all through the night, thinking of Mary and the baby, and the baby and Mary, if, suddenly, I had not heard a sound.
It was only a little one, so slight a sound that the wonder was that, in my then mental state, I heard it at all. But I did; and, what was more, I recognised it, too. It was the click of a catch, a window-catch. It came from the house which I was passing. I glanced round. There, on the newly painted pillar, visible even in the darkness, was the number—20. In an instant I was through the gate and was flashing my bull's-eye on to the premises.
I had not been mistaken. There, on the sill of the bow window on the first floor, was a man.
"What are you doing there?" I asked, though the question was unnecessary, since it was plain enough what he was doing—he was trying to gain entrance into the house by means of the window. He had an open clasp-knife in his hand, with whose aid he had just shot back the catch of the window, which was the sound I had heard. Although 1 had probably taken him entirely by surprise, so far as I could see, he did not make the slightest attempt at concealment, nor did he seem to be in any way disconcerted. Indeed, he confronted me with what looked uncommonly like a smile.
He certainly did not present the type of figure which one generally associates with burglary. He was a very big man. Even in the crouching attitude which he necessarily assumed upon the window-sill, still I guessed him at over six feet. He seemed to be well dressed. At that time of night he wore a top-hat and kid gloves. He looked like a gentleman. I was presently to learn that he spoke like one.
"I'm burgling my own house," he answered.
"Burgling your own house? What do you mean? Do you live here?"
"I do. My name is Walter Parsons, and I am the occupier of these premises."
The name conveyed nothing to me. I had only been on the beat a week or two, and knew nothing of the inhabitants. I was ignorant of their names, their appearance, their occupations, everything. But the speaker could hardly be aware of that. For all he could tell, I might have the history of the locality at my finger ends, and a portrait of every one of its inhabitants in my mind's eye. He spoke with an easy assurance, which seemed to take it for granted that, as a prominent resident upon my beat, he must be a familar figure to me, and that I knew all about him. But, in spite of that—I have been laughed at for saying it before, because I had nothing to go on then; but I say it again—there was something about my gentleman up there on the window-sill which made me doubtful.
"If you live there, why don't you go into your own house by the proper way—through the front door?"
"Because I can't. My wife and family are at Hastings. The place is supposed to be in charge of a caretaker, but it seems that her idea of caretaking does not include sleeping on the premises at night. I've been knocking and ringing for the last ten minutes."
"I didn't hear any knocking."
"Didn't you? Perhaps your attention was engaged elsewhere."
As a matter of fact, that had been the case. Still, as I had heard the click of the window-catch, it seemed to me that I ought to have heard the banging of a knocker, especially if he had been at it anything like as long as he said he had. I told him so. His reply was ironical.
"My good Mr. Constable, if you would like to try your hand at hammering, you can—till all's blue, and all the neighbourhood showers blessings on your head. Or if you wish to arrest me for entering my own house anyhow I like—down the chimney, if I choose—you may. In the meantime, I've got the window open." He pushed it up as he spoke. "I'm going in. I'll come and open the front door for you, and then I'll give you every possible proof that I'm merely an inoffensive householder who's been duped by a rascally caretaker."
He went in. I did not see how I could stop him, even if I had felt disposed to try, which I am not sure I was. A pretty figure I should have cut if I had attempted to use force to prevent him from entering his own house—as he put it himself—in any way he liked. One of my mates had had a wigging only a day or two before for what looked like over-anxiety to get up a case. I didn't want any of that sort of thing at my address. The man's manner was plausibility itself; for the matter of that, so was his tale. Caretakers do not always take care; and gentlemen do sometimes have to get into their own houses by the front windows I decided to give him a chance to do as he said—open the front door and show his right to behave as he had been doing. But if that front door were not open in double quick time, then—why, then there would be trouble.
In he got; down came the window—I had rather it had not—particularly as I distinctly heard him latch it. But there, again, I did not see how I could object to a man shutting his own front window. Then I waited—longer than I cared for—so long that I began to fidget. I started wondering what would happen if I really had been done. A nice sort of character I should have been made to look. I had come to the end of my patience, and was just about to begin a little assault and battery upon that door which would have roused the neighbourhood, when it opened. There stood my gentleman, with a light shining out into the hall from a room somewhere at the back.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, officer. I had to get a light. Couldn't introduce you to pitch darkness. Come in."
I hesitated. Our instructions were never to enter a private house when on duty except for what seemed very sufficient reasons. On the whole, I concluded that those reasons were present then. I entered. Shutting the door behind me, he led the way into a room behind—the room in which the light was. It seemed to be a sort of sitting-room, but it was in such a condition of disorder that it was not easy to tell. The furniture was covered with newspapers, and dust-cloths, and that kind of thing. So far appearances bore out his statement that the family was at the seaside. He offered a sort of apology.
"You see how things are. Nice place for a man to come home to, isn't it? This is what happens when one's household transfers itself to the sea."
"How come you not to have a key?" I asked.
"That's it. When I left Hastings this morning, I meant to return this evening; instead of which, I missed the train. So I wired to my wife and decided to come on here; when I got here, found the caretaker had taken French leave; and it was then, and only then, that I found I had come away without a key. As I didn't propose to be kept out of my own house, I tried the window. That caretaker is—a beauty."
"Some of them are not so reliable as they might be."
"This is one of them. Well, constable, I hope you're satisfied. Hallo! there's something here."
Going to the fireplace, he took a photograph off the mantel and handed it to me.
"There you are, my portrait—Walter Parsons, Esquire—at your service. I hope that's proof enough even for you."
It was his portrait, and an uncommonly good likeness, too. As he put it, it did seem proof enough.
"It seems all right. I'm sorry if I've annoyed you; but when we see anyone trying to get through a window at this hour of the night, we're bound to say something. I should sack that caretaker if I were you."
"I shall. Of course, I understand that you only did your duty. Have a little whisky before you go."
"Thank you, sir. I don't touch spirits as a rule."
"Then make this an exception."
There was a bottle and some glasses on the table. He poured something out of the bottle into one of the glasses. Adding what seemed water from a jug, he handed it to me. I doubt if at that time I had drunk whisky half-a-dozen times in my life; but I thought I would have a taste just then, if only to do honour to a toast which I kept to myself—the health of a certain young gentleman, not to speak of his mother. But hardly had I touched the stuff with my lips when I put the glass back again upon the table. It was that bitter I had never tasted anything like it.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"I don't know what's wrong, but it doesn't seem right."
He took up the glass and sniffed at it.
"It doesn't. That caretaker again. Some pretty tricks the dear creature seems to have been playing. I'm afraid I've no other refreshment to offer you. Here's five shillings."
He held out two half-crowns.
"I'm obliged to you, sir; but I'd rather not take it, if you don't mind."
"I don't mind—if you don't. You're the first man in blue I've met who refused a tip. You appear to be a model officer, an all-round credit to the force."
Whether or not he meant it, I did not know and did not care. I went along the hall. He showed me out.
Directly I was in the street again, all my doubts returned. That there was something wrong, I felt a kind of persuasion. Whether it was something that called for my interference, was another question. I decidedly had nothing to go on up to then. But whether my gentleman was or was not Mr. Walter Parsons, and whether he was or was not the rightful tenant of No. 20, Quarnley Terrace, on one point I was clear—and that was that he had something on his mind. Something unpleasant, too. There had been two or three things which I could not help but notice. One thing was that, in spite of the coolness of the night, he was in a muck of perspiration, a fact of which he seemed himself to be unconscious. When he removed his hat, it stood in beads upon his forehead, and his hair was clammy with it. Yet, while he sweated, there was an odd pallor on his face, and that though I felt sure that ordinarily he was florid. He gave me the impression of a man who had recently had a tremendous shock. While he spoke with such an appearance of calm assurance, when he took hold of the bottle, his hand shook so that it was a wonder he did not spill the contents on the table. I had observed, too, the curious keenness with which he had watched me take up the glass, and how queerly he had started when I put it down.
"But it's no good my fancying things," I told myself, "like some old woman. The gentleman may have plenty of worries which have nothing to do with anyone but himself, and least of all with me. What I've got to do is to keep an eye upon the house—a particular eye; and if anything further happens, make sure that I am the first to know of it. While I am about it, I may as well make a note of what has happened up to now."
I took out my pocket-book and made a note. When I had finished and was putting back the book again, all at once I felt as if the ground were slipping away from underneath my feet. My head seemed to swim; everything about me seemed to be in sudden movement; I felt as if I had no legs left to stand upon. If it had not been that I reeled back against the wall, and that that was there to support me, I believe that I should have gone with a cracker on to the ground. The sensation continued for some seconds, and while it lasted I remained propped up against the wall. If the sergeant had come along just then, he would have said I had been drinking. And so I had—about the tenth part of a small teaspoonful of whisky-and-water. What would have happened if I had taken more, was what I was beginning to wonder. When the feeling as if the end of the world had come began to fade away, there came into my mouth instead a nauseous bitterness, and my head started throbbing as if it were going to burst.
"I couldn't feel worse if I'd been on the drink for a fortnight."
My pocket-book had fallen on to the pavement. As I stooped forward to pick it up, another wave of giddiness swept over me. Before I could recover myself forward, I went right on to my face. By the time I was back upon my feet, I was in a nice state of mud and dirt, and in a nice rage, too. I turned and shook my fist towards No. 20.
"You—angel! So the whisky was hocussed, was it? Don't talk to me about a caretaker! You did it yourself! All right, Mr. Walter Parsons, that may be one to you—though it's not so big a one as you intended. But before I have done with you, the laugh will be all upon the other side."
I suppose, looking back, the stuff in the whisky, the feeling I had been done, the tumble I had had, the dirt which I had picked up from the pavement—all these things together had got into my head and caused me to make a bit of an ass of myself. It is not part of a policeman's duty to stand in the middle of the pavement and shake his fist at people's houses, no matter what provocation he may have received. The various little items enumerated above had combined to upset my mental as well as my physical equilibrium. When I surveyed my uniform—what I could see of it—and recognised that it was plastered with slime, and felt the dirt upon my face, I do think that made me worse than anything. In those days I prided myself on being as neat as a new pin. No one had seen a speck of unnecessary dirt upon my uniform ever since I joined the force. It did make me mad to think that I had got myself into that state through my gentleman at No. 20. I fancy that it was that almost before anything else which made me determined to be even with him somehow. What I should say to the sergeant when he came along and saw the mess I was in, was more than I could tell. He would want some explanation before he could be brought to understand why or how I had laid myself flat on my face on the filthy pavement.
I had half a mind to go straight back and charge him then and there with an attempt to hocus. But a moment's reflection showed me that I had not the slightest evidence to go upon. The contents of the bottle and glass had probably already been emptied down the sink. Or if not, I should still have to prove that he was responsible for their condition, which would be very far from easy. There might be a caretaker in the matter, after all.
"Caretaker!" I grumbled to myself. "There's a lot of caretaker about it, I've no doubt. I'd like to caretaker him."
Quarnley Terrace was situate in what was called The Grove. The Grove was perhaps half a mile in length. The whole of it was in my beat. I was reluctant to go too far away from No. 20, though I doubt if I should have been able to give a really satisfactory reason; while, on the other hand, I was conscious that if I were not careful, it might—and probably would—be worse for me. I looked at my watch. The odds were that in less than sixty seconds the sergeant would reach the point right at the other end of the road and expect to find me there awaiting him. If he did not find me, and I could furnish no adequate reason for my absence—and, under such circumstances, a sergeant has his own idea of what an adequate reason is—there would be a nice how-d'ye-do. Off I started, walking at the rate of six miles an hour, when—as before—I heard a sound.
It should be understood that everything was very still. There was no wind. It was one of those nights when the slightest unusual noise attracts one's attention even when it is at a considerable distance. I suppose that was how I came to hear that sound then, because it was not a loud one, and it proceeded from some way behind me. It was like the falling of some solid body—as if, for instance, someone had thrown something out of a window, and it had come with a thud on to the ground. Stopping on the instant, I stood with every faculty of hearing on the alert.
Stillness. Then—something else. A swishing noise, as if a heavy body were being drawn along the pavement. I did not require to be told from whence it came. I said to myself that it came from No. 20.
Oblivious of the point at the end of the road, without a moment's hesitation I turned and doubled back upon my tracks. As I went, I heard something else—distinctly. The closing of a door. That finished it. If Mr. Walter Parsons had been so anxious to get into his house that he had had to effect an entry through the window, why, at that hour of the night, was he already leaving it again? I tore along at the top of my speed, expecting every moment to see his figure emerge into the roadway. If it had done so, there would have been a chase. But it did not. When I reached No. 20, I paused in my impetuous career. I thought it quite possible that Mr. Parsons was hiding behind a pillar, or a shrub, or something, and might jump out and give me one before I was prepared. A man who would hocus a drink would be game for anything. But though I stood still for a moment or two, to give him a chance, nothing happened. Then, flattering myself that I was prepared for anything, I began to move through the gate into the pitch-black garden. Still nothing. I listened. If my gentleman were hiding among the shrubs, then he kept very still. It would be madness for me to search for him in that darkness; so I turned the shutter of my lantern and flashed the light about the little slip of garden. And, behold! there was nothing.
Stop! There was!
As the circle of light moved round, it passed over a flower-bed. There I let it rest. At one place the flowers were all broken and crushed, as though some heavy object which had been on them had pressed them flat against the earth. The flowers in the rest of the bed were right enough. The damage had been confined to that one part. Just in front of where the mischief was—on the front door side—there was a mark on the edge of the bed, and on the bit of grass, which looked as if it had been caused by something which had been dragged along the ground.
I closed my lantern and stood again to listen. All was silent. The house was in darkness. Not a glimmer of light at any of the windows. Nothing to show that anyone had noticed my presence, or that there was anything alive within. Under the circumstances I felt that I should be justified in pointing out to whomever might be within, that the front door had recently been opened and shut, and that something—queer or otherwise—had been playing the mischief with that front garden. Ascending the steps, I knocked smartly. No one answered.
"Come, Mr. Walter Parsons, you can't be asleep already, so it's no good pretending that you are. And you must have heard that knock. So you may as well take the trouble to come and see who's here. But if you won't, I'll try again."
I tried again. I brought the knocker down against the door three or four times—good, hearty blows. Still there was no sign to show that the noise I made had been audible within. I went down the steps, intending to run over the front of the house once more with in y bull's-eye, to see if anyone were peeping at me through a window, or anything of that sort. As I did so, someone spoke to me from behind.
"Why aren't you on your point? Is there anything wrong here?"
It was my sergeant's voice. I could not have said, just at the moment, if I was glad to hear it, or sorry.
"That's what I'm trying to find out. Do you know if anyone lives here of the name of Parsons—Walter Parsons?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Is he a tall, big-made man, with a heavy moustache?"
"There is a gentleman lives here named Walter Parsons, but he's not in the least like your description. I know him well by sight. He's a very little man, with a brown beard; I don't suppose he's over five feet high."
"Then there is something wrong. I thought as much."
"What do you mean? Look alive! What's happened?"
I told him what had happened, trying to look as much alive as I could manage, and to cram as much of the story as possible into the space which, so to speak, was at my command. He listened until, I suppose, he thought he had heard enough. Then he cut me short.
"That'll do. I'll have the rest later. The man you let go through the window is no more Mr. Parsons than I am. It strikes me you've done a pretty nice thing, my lad. What we've got to do now is to find out who your friend is, and where he is."
Mounting the steps in his turn, the sergeant played a lively tune upon the knocker. While we were waiting for the answer which did not come, he kept shooting questions at me, commenting on my answers in a way which made me turn hot and cold at once. Sergeant Ives was a smart officer; he got nearly to the top of the tree in the force before he died; but when he chose, he had a tongue which rasped like a file.
Seeing that not the slightest apparent notice was taken of the din which he had made, he asked me still another question, the clincher.
"I suppose you haven't been dreaming, and that you are sure the man you describe did go through the window?"
Had I been dreaming? Was I sure? My manner when I replied ought to have dispelled any fragment of doubt he might have had on that point, unless he took me for a first-class liar, or an A1 idiot, or the pair of them.
"I'm as sure that I've told you exactly what took place, as I am that you and I are standing here."
"All right! Keep your temper! You'll want all you've got, by the look of things, a little later on! Then if you are sure, we've got to get into this house somehow."
Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! He went again at the knocker. The wonder was he did not burst the door right in. I will lay odds he shook it. One would have thought the clatter he made would have roused the whole neighbourhood. As a matter of fact, hardly had he stopped banging, than a window went up above our heads, and a voice called out to us.
"Who's that making that noise down there?"
My heart went up into my mouth. I imagined that we had roused my gentleman at last; and that he would hardly shout at us in that cock-a-doodle tone of voice if he had not some sort of right to be where he was; and that, in consequence, I should be out of the wood. But I was mistaken, as a momentary upward glance proved. The window had not been opened at No. 20 at all, but at No. 19, next door, and the individual who was leaning half out of it was not my gentleman, but somebody else entirely. The sergeant spoke to him.
"Do you know the people who live in this house?"
"I do."
"Is the name Parsons?"
"It is."
"Do you know if Mr. Parsons has come home to-night?"
"I know that he hasn't. He is staying with his family at Hastings. I had a letter from him this morning to say that they are returning on Saturday. If it had been his intention to return to-night, he would certainly have let me know."
"Someone who calls himself Walter Parsons, and who says that the caretaker has gone out, and that he left his key behind, not long ago got into the house through the window."
"Caretaker! key! There is no caretaker; and the key's in my charge. Some member of my family goes into the house each day to see that everything's all right."
"Then if you have the key, it strikes me that you'd better come down and let us in, to see who that party is and what he's up to."
"I'll be with yon in half a minute."
The speaker's head and shoulders were withdrawn. The window through which he bad thrust them was closed. We awaited his reappearance down below. And while we waited, the sergeant improved the fleeting moments by firing off in my direction some observations of an agreeable nature.
"It occurs to me, my lad, that you've perhaps managed to set yourself up for the rest of your life. You mayn't be aware of it, but it's not generally supposed to be part of a policeman's duty to give a burglar a leg up through the window of the crib he's engaged in cracking, though the members of the force might be more popular in certain quarters if it were."
I let him talk. I knew better than to put in my oar. It was understood that if you let Sergeant Ives have his say all to himself, and talk himself right out, then that was about all there was to it. But if you tried talking back, why, then you might look out for ructions. Yet when he spoke to me in that strain, it was only the thought of Mary and of that new son of mine which helped me to keep my tongue back between my teeth. I endeavoured to console myself by resolving that what the sergeant was giving me I would add to the balance I owed "Mr. Walter Parsons," and make it even—and a trifle over—with him. I was not proposing to let any man get me treated as if I were a half-baked sawney for nothing at all. There are those, maybe, who let people jump on them, and ask for more. But I am not one.
By the time the gentleman from next door put in an appearance on the scene, I was as nearly bursting with rage as I ever was in the whole course of my life. In another second or two, I should have had to open a safety-valve to let something off.
"Got the key?" asked the sergeant.
"Yes, I have the key. And I also have a bad cold. I don't want to make it worse. I hope you're not bringing me out of my warm bed, at this time of night, and in this sort of weather, for nothing at all."
"Then I hope we are; and for your friend's sake you ought to hope so, too. You don't want to have his house entered and robbed while it is in your charge. What's this?"
"That's the key. I think, under the circumstances, that perhaps you had better open the door."
The sergeant looked at him. So did I. He was tall and thin, and wore glasses, and was about as unathletic looking a party as he well could have been. I do not fancy he had much stomach for the kind of adventure which the situation suggested. Ives took the key, put it in the door, tried to turn it—in vain.
"Is there anything patent about it? What's the trick?"
"There is no trick. It turns quite easily—from right to left."
"Then perhaps you'll come and turn it. There's something in being used to a key."
The party from No. 19 displayed evident reluctance. He was standing at the bottom of the steps, and seemed to prefer to stay there.
"It only wants a sharp twist."
"Then come and give it the sharp twist it wants."
The spectacled gentleman ascended the steps, it struck me, a little gingerly, as if he half expected that something would fly out of the house and spring at him. He tackled the key. But it declined to turn for him any more than for the sergeant.
"It won't move. That's strange. My wife and I went over the house together only this evening; I opened the door myself. It opened quite easily then. Now there seems something wrong."
"I'm afraid there is. Is that the only key you have?"
"The latch-key is the only one that's wanted. The big lock is caught back."
"It was. I expect the chap who is inside has let it go, and trapped the latch to make things surer. He doesn't want anyone else to get in too easily while he's there." Ives turned to me. "You'll have to follow him the way he went—through the window."
In under half a minute I was on the sill—the one on which I had first caught sight of "Mr. Walter Parsons." I had my clasp-knife open and had slipped the catch of the window inside a minute. Extraordinary how insecurely windows are fastened. There is not one in a hundred which would present any difficulty to a boy who has just been breeched. Up went the sash.
"Look out for anyone going for you before you get into the room." I was looking out. But there were no signs that anyone was conscious of my proceedings. The sergeant issued further instructions. "Directly you're in, come straight round and open the door for us."
Thrusting the blind aside, I shone my lantern round the room. There was no one in it. I stepped on to the floor. As had been the case in the apartment into which "Mr. Walter Parsons" had conducted me, here also practically everything which the place contained was shrouded from sight. There was nothing to suggest that it had been recently occupied, or that there had been any unauthorised interference with its contents. But that something curious was taking place somewhere about the premises I recognised immediately upon my entrance.
So soon as I had my feet upon the floor, and had let the blind fall back into its place behind me, I perceived a peculiar smell; and—what was it? Was it the sound of someone calling? Were they the cries of a person in pain? Was it some sort of animal? Or—what? There was an odd noise coming from somewhere.
I moved quickly across the room, to find the door shut and locked upon the other side. Since my gentleman must have gone through it when he came in, it was tolerably clear he must have locked it. I returned to announce my discovery.
"Something funny's going on in here; there's a queer smell and a queerer sound. But I can't get out of this room, the door's locked on the outside."
The sergeant's reply came short and sharp.
"Break it open. If you can't do it by yourself, I'll come in and help you."
"I think I can manage to do it."
And I did manage. I am six feet two and a half inches high, and I was not a light weight even in those days. I took a little run and gave that door my shoulder once—twice—and the third time went clean through. It was a trifle unexpected. I had thought it would have offered more resistance. The consequence was that I found myself a bit mixed up with the splinters. Anyhow, I was in the hall in a brace of shakes. When I got there, the smell or something seemed to hit me in the face. The sounds which I had heard were more audible than ever. They set my nerves all of a twitter. If someone or something were not half mad with pain, or terror, or both, then I was a Dutchman.' And quite close at hand.
I rushed to the hall door. The sergeant shouted to me from without—
"Is that you, Coleman?"
"Yes, sir. There's something very wrong indeed inside here, but Heaven knows what it is. I'm going to open the door. … I can't!"
"Why can't you?"
"The big lock's locked, and the trap of the upper one seems jammed. I expect that chap's taken away the key."
"All right. I'll come in through the window. Do nothing till I come."
By the time I was back in the front room the sergeant was in it, too. The moment he was, he gave an exclamation.
"Why, the place is on fire!"
On fire? Of course. What an idiot I had been not to understand at once! That explained the suffocating odour—the acrid something which was stealing up our nostrils.
"Then it's in the room at the back."
That was the room to which I had already been introduced, in which I had been offered the hocussed whisky. We both of us hurried out into the hall to the back room door, standing for an instant to listen.
"It's in there right enough. Can't you hear it?"
I could. The noise of what sounded like flames was unmistakable. As we stood, there came another sound—a yell which seemed to go right through me.
"That's not fire."
"Someone must be burning."
"Then it's the chap himself."
"The chap himself? What do you mean? How do you know? Open the door!"
I stood next to it. I turned the handles.
"It's locked. He's locked himself in!" I struck the panel with my hand. "Inside there! Who's in there?"
No answer. All was still; there was only the roar of the flames.
"The man must be burning to death! You'll have to burst the door. Only look out for yourself as you do it."
I burst it, that time—as I only had to drive the lock back—at the first try. The room within was on the high road to become a flaming furnace. There was a horrible stench of what seemed to be some sort of burning spirit. The heat rushed out at us. It was all I could do to stand my ground while I looked for the man from whom that yell had come. He could not have been consumed to ashes while we had been standing without the door. It was incredible, impossible. Yet there was no one to be seen—no sign of anything that had ever been endowed with life.
But I did catch sight of something that made me stare. Almost everything that was in the room—tables, sideboard, chairs, all kinds of odds and ends—had been gathered into a higgledy-piggledy sort of heap in the middle of the floor. They were already blazing merrily away, bidding fair to form a sufficiently expensive bonfire. On the top, in the centre, so that the flames were rising about it on every side, was a kit-bag—if I could credit the evidence of my own senses, the identical kit-bag which I had last seen in solitary possession of the booking-office at St. John's Wood Station, either that one or its twin brother. It stood in danger of immediate destruction. Not only was it in the midst of the blaze, but already the sides of the bag were giving forth an ominous smoke. As I watched, one of them broke into flame. I do not know what prompted me—because it was only a bag, after all—but when I saw that, I ran into the room.
"What are you doing?" cried the sergeant. "Is there anyone there?"
I did not stop to answer. The smoke was blinding and suffocating me both at once. I felt as if the floor were giving way beneath my feet, as if the skin were cracking on my face. I rushed at the blazing heap, grabbed at the handle of the bag. It was heavier than I expected, but I managed to get a good hold of it and went staggering with it to the door.
"What's the matter with you?" asked Ives. "What is it you've got there?"
"I don't know."
I did not. At that time I did not even know what the thing was called. I hauled it into the front room. Although it was no longer actually flaming, it was smoking enough to choke you. And the heat must have tried its constitution, because no sooner had I got it into the other room than one of the sides came clean away, and, with it, the contents dropped on to the floor.
"What's that fallen out of it?" asked Ives.
I was leaning over, staring with something more than amazement.
"I believe—it's a man!"
"A man!" Down went Ives upon his knees. The flames were beginning to come out of the next room into the passage, so that we could see quite plainly. "Good Heavens! It's Mr. Parsons! He can't have been inside that bag."
"He was."
"Is this the man who got through the window?"
"He's not in the least bit like him."
"Then there's been a nice game on somewhere."
"He's not dead."
As I lifted his head from the floor, I felt him shudder.
"Thank goodness for that! We shall have to take him through the window and get him out of this."
"I'll see to that."
I did. As the sergeant had said, he was such a little chap, I bore him in my arms as if he were a baby. With a little help from Ives, I got him out into the garden, and then into the house next door—No. 19.
That's my story. And the explanation is not the least strange part of it.
The party whom I saw get through the window was a gentleman of the name of Turndall—Philip Turndall. He was Parsons' partner—which explained how his portrait stood so handy on the mantelpiece. Messrs. Parsons and Turndall were solicitors—a firm of good old family lawyers, with tin cases stuffed full of their clients' title-deeds, and bonds, and shares, and that kind of thing. Mr. Turndall, who was a person of lofty notions in the money-spending line, took it into his head to treat the contents of those tin cases as if they were his own property. He raised money on them right and left without thinking it necessary to mention what he was doing to Mr. Parsons. At last discovery stared him in the face. Somebody wanted something which ought to have been in one of those cases, but happened to be elsewhere. Mr. Turndall concocted an ingenious scheme to account for its absence.
He brought his partner up to London on pretence of business. Towards evening, when the clerks had gone home, and Parsons was about to return to Hastings, he produced a bottle of champagne and suggested that the other should have a share of it to help him on his journey. Parsons consented. He had a glass. He remembered so much, and no more. Beyond doubt the champagne was flavoured with the same stuff as that whisky was. Probably Parsons was unconscious almost as soon as he had swallowed it. Turndall knew that he would continue unconscious for a considerable time. He was too nice-minded to commit murder by actual violence. So he picked up his partner off the floor and packed him into a brand new kit-bag which he might have bought for that special purpose. Parsons was small; the bag was large. Neatly folded up into a compact parcel by Turndall's vigorous hands, room was found for him, though probably no live man was ever confined in closer quarters. Some time after the shades of night had fallen, with the kit-bag in one hand, and something containing methylated spirit in the other, Mr. Turndall went across London to his friend's residence at No. 20, Quarnley Terrace.
His idea was to enter unobserved, and then—with the aid of that methylated spirit—to burn the house, with Mr. Parsons in it, still unconscious. When, perhaps the next day, he heard of the fire, he would have been shocked. And, he would have been still more shocked on discovering that someone had been making free with the contents of those tin cases. The dreadful fact would have been revealed that Parsons was a thief. The whole shameful story would have been made too plain. The man had fled to escape the hands of justice, having first set fire to his house to conceal the evidences of his guilt. And Mr. Philip Turndall would have been regarded as an injured innocent.
Unfortunately, his game was spoiled by my happening to hear the click of the window-catch. It must have been an awkward moment for him when I flashed my bull's-eye upon him as he crouched upon the window-sill. No wonder he perspired; the marvel was that he should have kept so cool. The kit-bag must have been in the garden all the time. It was surprising how I came to overlook it. After I went, he came out and fetched it in. That was the noise I heard. When I returned and started hammering at the door, he must have recognised that the game was completely up. While Sergeant Ives was trying to get in at the front, he got out at the back. He must have gone straight off to his own rooms; and during the rest of the night he must have had a pretty bad time. He spent part of it in writing a nice little confession on a nice little sheet of paper. In the morning the confession was found on the table, and he was a corpse on the bed—a case of felo de se.
That drugged champagne was, in a sense, possibly Mr. Parsons' salvation. Considering his prolonged incarceration in that dreadful prison, how he had been dragged round London, and dumped down at St. John's Wood Station while his partner refreshed himself, it was marvellous how he should have suffered no after ill effects. When I saw him a day or two later, you could not have told that anything out of the way had ever happened to him.
No. 20 was damaged, but not destroyed; Mr. Turndall had been interrupted. Mr. Parsons managed to drag things out of the quicksands amidst which his partner had got them. I understand that his firm has a high reputation in London to-day. He never took another partner. And every year since he has sent me something in recognition of the festive season.
My boy—he was my last-born as well as my first-born, for we have never had another child—is now a policeman, like his father was.
So now you understand how it is that, to this hour, whenever I see a kit-bag, a curious feeling goes all over me.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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