KICKED!
(By the Foot of Clara Groomley.)
In Four Chapters.—III.
Nothing done! The whole Detective force of London, having nothing better to do, were placed at my disposal, and, after three weeks' search, they found a girl called Smith; but it was the wrong one. My darling is blonde, and this was a dark, almost a black, Smith. I came back to Ryde in a passion and a third-class carriage. I find from Mademoiselle that Miss Smith has not yet returned.
James seemed pleased to see me, but he noticed that in my anxiety and preoccupation I had forgotten to have my hat ironed. The hotel is quite full, and I am to sleep in the Haunted Room to-night.
I am not a hysterical man, and this is not a neurotic story. It is, as a matter of fact, the same old rot to which the shilling shockers have made us accustomed. I cannot account in any way for my experiences last night in the Haunted Room, but they certainly were not due to nervousness. I had not been asleep long before I had a most curious and vivid dream. I felt that I was not in the hotel, and that at the same time I was not out of it. I had a curious sense of being everywhere in general, and nowhere in particular.
I saw before me a gorgeously furnished room. On the tiger-skin rug before the fire was a basket with a crewel-worked chair-back spread over it. What was in the basket? Again and again I asked myself that question. I felt like a long-division sum, and a cold shiver went down my quotient.
In one corner of the room stood a man of about thirty, with a handsome, wicked face. One hand rested on the drawer of a writing-table. Slowly he drew from it a folded paper, and read, in a harsh, raucous voice:—
"'To cleaning and repairing one——' No, that's not it."
He selected another paper. Ah, it was the right one this time!
"'Memorandum of Aunt Jane's Will.' 'All property to go to Alice Smith, unless Aunt Jane's poodle, Tommy Atkins, dies before Alice Smith comes of age. In which case, it all goes to me.' I remember making that note when the will was read. And now"—he glanced at the covered basket—"Tommy's kicked the bucket. Well, he stood in my way. Who's to know? But there must be no post-mortem, no 'vet' fetched in. Happy thought—I'll have the brute stuffed." He knelt down by the side of the basket, and slowly drew back the covering. "Ah!" he said—"it's cruel work."
Did he refer to the chair-back? or did he refer to the way in which, for the sake of gain, an honest dog had been MURDERED? For there before my eyes lay the dead poodle, Tommy Atkins!
"Alice loses all her money," he continued, "but that doesn't matter. She tells me that she's picked up no end of a swell down at Ryde, and he may marry her. The question is—will he?" Once more I felt like a division sum. I yearned to call out loudly, and answer with a decided negative; but no words came. My strength was gone. I was utterly worked out, and there was no remainder.
When I came to myself, I found James, the waiter, standing by my bedside with a gentleman whom I did not know. James introduced him to me as a Mr. Alkaloid, a photographer who was stopping in the hotel. Mr. Alkaloid had been woken up by a wild shriek for a decided negative, and had rushed down to see if he could do a little business. "Take you by the electric light," he said; "just as you are,"—I was in my night-dress and the old, old hat, the rim of which had been slightly sprained,—"perfectly painless process, and money returned if not satisfactory." I thanked him warmly, and apologised for having disturbed him.
I went to London on the following day. I felt it my positive duty to explain that I should always regard Alice Smith as a sister, but nothing more.
I had quite forgotten that I did not know the house where Alice Smith lived, and the poodle dog lay dead.
(Here ends the Narrative of Cyril Mush.)
