The Charing Cross Mystery, J. S. Fletcher [portable ebook reader .txt] 📗

end of this passage who was formerly hall-porter at the White Bear⁠—Amblet Hudson⁠—and who now keeps a rather cosy little saloon-bar down here: we’ll drop in on him. He’s what we call a bit of a character, and if you can get him to talk, he’s usually worth listening to.” VI Samples of Ink

Hollis led the way farther along the alley, between high, black, windowless walls, and suddenly turning into a little court, paused before a door set deep in the side of an old half-timbered house.

“Queer old place, this!” he remarked over his shoulder. “But you’ll get a glass of as good port or sherry from this chap as you’d get anywhere in England⁠—he knows his customers! Come in.”

He led the way into a place the like of which Hetherwick had never seen⁠—a snug, cosy room, panelled and raftered in old oak, with a bright fire burning in an open hearth and the flicker of its flames dancing on the old brass and pewter that ornamented the walls. There was a small bar-counter on one side of it; and behind this, in his shirtsleeves, and with a cigar protruding from the corner of a pair of clean-shaven, humorous lips, stood a keen-eyed man, busily engaged in polishing wineglasses.

“Good morning, gentlemen!” he said heartily. “Nice morning, Mr. Hollis, for the time o’ year. And what can I do for you and your friend, sir?”

Hollis glanced round the room⁠—empty, save for themselves. He drew a stool to the bar and motioned Hetherwick to follow his example.

“I think we’ll try your very excellent dry sherry, Hudson,” he answered. “That is, if it’s as good as it was last time I tasted it.”

“Always up to standard, Mr. Hollis, always up to standard, sir!” replied the barkeeper. “No inferior qualities, no substitutes, and no trading on past reputation in this establishment, gentlemen! As good a glass of dry sherry here, sir, as you’d get where sherry wine comes from⁠—and you can’t say that of most places in England, I think. Everything’s of the best here, Mr. Hollis⁠—as you know!”

Hollis responded with a little light chaff; suddenly he bent across the bar.

“Hudson!” he said confidentially. “My friend here has something he’d like to show you. Now, then,” he continued, as Hetherwick, in response to this, had produced the picture, “do you recognise that?”

The barkeeper put on a pair of spectacles and turned the picture to the light, examining it closely. His lips tightened; then relaxed in a cynical smile.

“Aye!” he said, half carelessly. “It’s the woman that did old Malladale out of that diamond necklace. Of course!⁠—Mistress Whittingham!”

“Would you know her again, if you met her⁠—now?” asked Hollis.

The barkeeper picked up one of his glasses and began a vigorous polishing.

“Aye!” he answered, laconically. “And I should know her by something else than her face!”

Just then two men came in, and Hudson broke off to attend to their wants. But presently they carried their glasses away to a snug corner near the fire, and the barkeeper once more turned to Hollis and Hetherwick.

“Aye!” he said confidentially. “If need were, I could tell that party by something else than her face, handsome as that is! I used to tell Hannaford when he was busy trying to find her that if he’d any difficulty about making certain, I could identify her if nobody else could! You see, I saw a deal of her when she was stopping at the White Bear. And I knew something that nobody else knew.”

“What is it?” asked Hetherwick.

Hudson leaned closer across the counter and lowered his voice.

“She was a big, handsome woman, this Mrs. Whittingham,” he continued. “Very showy, dressy woman; fond of fine clothes and jewellery, and so on; sort of woman, you know, that would attract attention anywhere. And one of these women, too, that was evidently used to being waited on hand and foot⁠—she took her money’s worth out of the White Bear, I can tell you! I did a deal for her, one way or another, and I’ll say this for her: she was free enough with her money. If it so happened that she wanted things doing for her, she kept you fairly on the go till they were done, but she threw five-shilling pieces and half-crowns about as if they were farthings! She’d send you to take a sixpenny telegram and give you a couple of shillings for taking it. Well, now, as I say, I saw a deal of her, one way and another, getting cabs for her, and taking things up to her room, and doing this, that, and t’other. And it was with going up there one day sudden-like, with a telegram that had just come, that I found out something about her⁠—something that, as I say, I could have told her by anywhere, even if she could have changed her face and put a wig on!”

“Aye⁠—and what, now?” asked Hollis.

“This!” answered Hudson with a knowing look. “Maybe I’m a noticing sort of chap⁠—anyhow, there was a thing I always noticed about Mrs. Whittingham. Wherever she was, and no matter how she was dressed, whether it was in her going-out things or her dinner finery, she always wore a band of black velvet round her right forearm, just above the wrist, where women wear bracelets. In fact, it was a sort of bracelet, a strip, as I say, of black velvet, happen about two inches wide, and on the front a cameo ornament, the size of a shilling, white stone or something of that sort, with one of these heathen figures carved on it. There were other folk about the place noticed that black velvet band, too⁠—I tell you she was never seen without it; the chambermaids said she slept with it on. But on the occasion I’m telling you about, when I went up to her room with a telegram, I caught her without it. She opened her door to see who knocked⁠—she was in a dressing-gown, going to change for dinner, I