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

answers to your description, anyway. But I’ll tell you how we came across his track. Last night a man named Appleyard came to me⁠—he’s a chap who has a chemist’s shop in Horseferry Road, Westminster⁠—a middle-aged, quiet sort of man, who prefaced his remarks by telling us that he very rarely had time to read newspapers or he’d have been round to see us before. But yesterday he happened to pick up a copy of one of last Sunday’s papers, and he read an account of the Hannaford affair. Then he remembered something that seemed to him to have a possible connection with it. Some little time ago he advertised for an assistant⁠—a qualified assistant. He’d two or three applications which weren’t exactly satisfactory. Then, one evening⁠—he couldn’t give any exact date, but from various things he told us I reckoned up that it must have been on the very evening on which Hannaford met his death⁠—a man came and made a personal application. Appleyard described him⁠—medium-sized, a spare man, sallow-complexioned, thin face and beard, large dark eyes, very intelligent, superior manner, poorly dressed, and evidently in low water⁠—”

“That’s the man, I’ll be bound!” exclaimed Hetherwick. “Did he give this chemist his name?”

“He did⁠—name and address,” answered Matherfield. “He said his name was James Granett, and his address Number 8, Fligwood’s Rents, Gray’s Inn Road⁠—Holborn end. He told Appleyard that he was a qualified chemist, and produced his proofs and some references. He also said that though he’d never had a business of his own he’d been employed, as, indeed, the references showed, by some good provincial firms at one time or another. Lately he’d been in the employ of a firm of manufacturing chemists in East Ham⁠—for some reason or other their trade had fallen off, and they’d had to reduce their staff, and he’d been thrown out of work, and had had the further bad luck to be seriously ill. This, he said, had exhausted his small means, and he was very anxious to get another job⁠—so anxious that he appeared to come to Appleyard on very low terms. Appleyard told him he’d inquire into the references and write to him in a day or two. He did inquire, found the references quite satisfactory, and wrote to Granett engaging him. But Granett never turned up, and Appleyard heard no more of him until he read this Sunday paper. Then he felt sure Granett was the man, and came to me.”

“I shouldn’t think there’s any doubt in the case,” remarked Hetherwick. “But before we go any further, a question. Did Appleyard say what time it was when this man came to him that evening?”

“He did. It was just as he was closing his shop⁠—nine o’clock. Granett stopped talking with him about half an hour. Indeed, Appleyard told me more. After they’d finished their talk, Appleyard, who doesn’t live at the shop, locked it up, and he then invited Granett to step across the street with him and have a drink before going home. They had a drink together in a neighbouring saloon bar, and chatted a bit there; it would be nearly ten o’clock, according to Appleyard, when Granett left him. And he remembered that Granett, on leaving him, went round the corner into Victoria Street, on his way, no doubt, to the Underground.”

“And in Victoria Street, equally without doubt, he met Hannaford,” muttered Hetherwick. “Well, and the rest of it?”

“Well, of course, as soon as I learnt all this, I determined to go myself to Fligwood’s Rents,” replied Matherfield. “I went, first thing this morning. Fligwood’s Rents is a slum street⁠—only a man who is very low down in the world would ever dream of renting a room there. It’s a sort of alley or court on the right-hand side of Gray’s Inn Road, going up⁠—some half-dozen squalid houses on each side, let off in tenements. Number 8 was a particularly squalid house!⁠—slatternly women and squalling brats about the door and general dirt and shabbiness all round. None of the women about the place knew the name of Granett, but after I’d described the man I wanted they argued that it must be the gentleman on the top back; they added the further information that they hadn’t seen him for some days. I went up a filthy stair to the room they indicated; the door was locked and I couldn’t get any response to my repeated knockings. So then I set out to discover the landlord, and eventually unearthed a beery individual in a neighbouring low-class tavern. I got out of him that he had a lodger named Granett, who paid him six shillings a week for this top back room, and he suddenly remembered that Granett hadn’t paid his last week’s rent. That made more impression on him than anything I said, and he went with me to the house. And to cut things short, we forced the door, and found the man dead in his bed!”

“Dead!” exclaimed Hetherwick. “Dead⁠—then?”

“Dead then⁠—yes, and he’d been dead several days, according to the doctors,” replied Matherfield grimly. “Dead enough! It was a poor room, but clean⁠—you could see from various little things that the man had been used to a better condition. But as regards himself⁠—he’d evidently gone to bed in the usual way. His clothes were all carefully folded and arranged, and by the side of the bed there was a chair on which was a half-burnt candle and an evening newspaper.”

“That would fix the date,” suggested Hetherwick.

“Of course, it did⁠—and it was the same date as that on which Hannaford died,” answered Matherfield. “I’ve made a careful note of that circumstance! Everything looked as if the man had gone to bed in just his ordinary way, read the paper a bit, blown out his light, dropped off to sleep, and died in his sleep.”

“Yes!⁠—and from what cause, I wonder?” exclaimed Hetherwick.

“Precisely the same idea occurred to me, knowing what I did about Hannaford,” said Matherfield. “However, the doctors