The Club of Queer Trades, G. K. Chesterton [book series for 12 year olds .TXT] 📗

the milkman came swinging up the steps without his can and hurried off clattering down the road. Two or three minutes more elapsed, and then Rupert came bounding up also, his face pale but yet laughing; a not uncommon contradiction in him, denoting excitement.

“My friend,” he said, rubbing his hands, “so much for all your scepticism. So much for your philistine ignorance of the possibilities of a romantic city. Two and sixpence, my boy, is the form in which your prosaic good nature will have to express itself.”

“What?” I said incredulously, “do you mean to say that you really did find anything the matter with the poor milkman?”

His face fell.

“Oh, the milkman,” he said, with a miserable affectation at having misunderstood me. “No, I⁠—I⁠—didn’t exactly bring anything home to the milkman himself, I⁠—”

“What did the milkman say and do?” I said, with inexorable sternness.

“Well, to tell the truth,” said Rupert, shifting restlessly from one foot to another, “the milkman himself, as far as merely physical appearances went, just said, ‘Milk, Miss,’ and handed in the can. That is not to say, of course, that he did not make some secret sign or some⁠—”

I broke into a violent laugh. “You idiot,” I said, “why don’t you own yourself wrong and have done with it? Why should he have made a secret sign any more than anyone else? You own he said nothing and did nothing worth mentioning. You own that, don’t you?”

His face grew grave.

“Well, since you ask me, I must admit that I do. It is possible that the milkman did not betray himself. It is even possible that I was wrong about him.”

“Then come along with you,” I said, with a certain amicable anger, “and remember that you owe me half a crown.”

“As to that, I differ from you,” said Rupert coolly. “The milkman’s remarks may have been quite innocent. Even the milkman may have been. But I do not owe you half a crown. For the terms of the bet were, I think, as follows, as I propounded them, that wherever that milkman came to a real stop I should find out something curious.”

“Well?” I said.

“Well,” he answered, “I jolly well have. You just come with me,” and before I could speak he had turned tail once more and whisked through the blue dark into the moat or basement of the house. I followed almost before I made any decision.

When we got down into the area I felt indescribably foolish literally, as the saying is, in a hole. There was nothing but a closed door, shuttered windows, the steps down which we had come, the ridiculous well in which I found myself, and the ridiculous man who had brought me there, and who stood there with dancing eyes. I was just about to turn back when Rupert caught me by the elbow.

“Just listen to that,” he said, and keeping my coat gripped in his right hand, he rapped with the knuckles of his left on the shutters of the basement window. His air was so definite that I paused and even inclined my head for a moment towards it. From inside was coming the murmur of an unmistakable human voice.

“Have you been talking to somebody inside?” I asked suddenly, turning to Rupert.

“No, I haven’t,” he replied, with a grim smile, “but I should very much like to. Do you know what somebody is saying in there?”

“No, of course not,” I replied.

“Then I recommend you to listen,” said Rupert sharply.

In the dead silence of the aristocratic street at evening, I stood a moment and listened. From behind the wooden partition, in which there was a long lean crack, was coming a continuous and moaning sound which took the form of the words: “When shall I get out? When shall I get out? Will they ever let me out?” or words to that effect.

“Do you know anything about this?” I said, turning upon Rupert very abruptly.

“Perhaps you think I am the criminal,” he said sardonically, “instead of being in some small sense the detective. I came into this area two or three minutes ago, having told you that I knew there was something funny going on, and this woman behind the shutters (for it evidently is a woman) was moaning like mad. No, my dear friend, beyond that I do not know anything about her. She is not, startling as it may seem, my disinherited daughter, or a member of my secret seraglio. But when I hear a human being wailing that she can’t get out, and talking to herself like a mad woman and beating on the shutters with her fists, as she was doing two or three minutes ago, I think it worth mentioning, that is all.”

“My dear fellow,” I said, “I apologize; this is no time for arguing. What is to be done?”

Rupert Grant had a long clasp-knife naked and brilliant in his hand.

“First of all,” he said, “housebreaking.” And he forced the blade into the crevice of the wood and broke away a huge splinter, leaving a gap and glimpse of the dark windowpane inside. The room within was entirely unlighted, so that for the first few seconds the window seemed a dead and opaque surface, as dark as a strip of slate. Then came a realization which, though in a sense gradual, made us step back and catch our breath. Two large dim human eyes were so close to us that the window itself seemed suddenly to be a mask. A pale human face was pressed against the glass within, and with increased distinctness, with the increase of the opening came the words:

“When shall I get out?”

“What can all this be?” I said.

Rupert made no answer, but lifting his walking-stick and pointing the ferrule like a fencing sword at the glass, punched a hole in it, smaller and more accurate than I should have supposed possible. The moment he had done so the voice spouted out of the hole, so to speak, piercing and querulous