Great Porter Square: A Mystery. v. 2

by B. L. Farjeon

Made happy by this communication, but still more than ever impressed by the consciousness that a mystery existed which rendered it necessary to be cautious, I thanked the manager of the hotel, and hastened to a shipping office in Broadway, where I paid my passage in a steamer which was to leave in a couple of days. Then I went to the Herald office, and paid for an advertisement in the Personal column, giving the name of the ship in which I had taken passage, and the date of its departure. Before the expiration of two weeks I landed in Liverpool, and applied at the Post Office for a letter. One was handed to me in the handwriting of my father. Imagine my astonishment at its contents. So as to make this statement in a certain measure complete, I will endeavour to recall what it contained.

“Frederick, and whatever other name you choose to call yourself by. In sending you to Chicago, and causing you to follow me back to England, I have had but one motive—to impress upon you that you cannot escape the consequences of your slander upon the noblest woman breathing. In whatever part of the world you may be, my hate and curse shall follow you. Now, present yourself before me and beg upon your knees for mercy and forgiveness; it will be another proof of your currish spirit! I shall know how to receive you, Slanderer!”

I could scarcely believe the evidence of my senses. I trembled with amazement and indignation. That such a trick should have been played upon me was altogether so astonishing and incomprehensible that I looked about me in bewilderment for a faithful heart upon whose sympathy I could throw myself for consolation. I thought of you, and determined to come to you, and ask for counsel and comfort. But before I started for Exeter there was something to do which, to leave undone, would have brought a life-long shame upon me. I took from the money remaining of the £200 I received in New York as much as would carry me to your side; the rest I enclosed in an envelope, with the sight draft for £500, and sent it to my father’s address in London, with these words: “May God pardon you for the wrong you have done me! I will never seek you, nor, if you seek me, will I ever come to you. The money I have spent of the £200 I will endeavour to repay you; but what else, besides money, we owe to each other can never be repaid in this world.”

I posted this letter, and journeyed on to Exeter, and there another grief awaited me. You had left the town; your mother was dead, had been dead for weeks, and you had not informed me of it in your letters. I will be frank with you. So overwhelmed was I by what had taken place, so much was my spirit bruised, that it seemed as if faith in human kind had entirely deserted me. For a moment, my dear, I doubted even you; but then the better and truer hope dawned upon me that, knowing from my letters how unfortunate and unhappy I had been, you had withheld from me the news of your own deep trouble so that it might not add to mine.

What now was I to do? All that I could learn of you was that you had gone to London; there, then, was my duty. To London I must go, and endeavour to find you, and endeavour at the same time to hide myself from my father who had so shamefully abused me. But I had no money—not a shilling. I could raise a little, however. Before I left New York I had provided myself with good clothes, and these were on me now. I went to a vile shop in one of the worst parts of Exeter, and there I bartered the clothes I stood upright in for a sum of money barely sufficient to take me to London and to enable me to live there on dry bread for a few days. Included in this bargain, to my necessity and advantage, was a ragged suit of clothes in which I dressed, after divesting myself of my better habiliments, and thus, clothed like a beggar, and with a despairing heart beating in my bosom, I made my way to London. At the end of a week I had not a penny left, and I was so hungry that I had to beg for bread of a girl standing at the wooden gate of a poor-looking house.

The girl’s heart was touched—God bless her for it!—and she ran into the house, and brought out a few pieces of stale bread and cheese, wrapped in a bit of newspaper. I stood by a lamp-post, munching the hard bread, and looking at the bit of newspaper the while. What I read related to a mysterious, fearful murder which had been committed in Great Porter Square. Nothing was known of the murdered man, and his murderer had not been discovered. The names of both were shrouded in mystery. “So might it be with me,” I thought; “if I were murdered this night, there is about me or upon me absolutely no mark or sign by which I could be identified.”

Ah, my dear, London’s mysteries are many and terrible! Imagination cannot compass or excel them.

It was a dark night, and I wandered aimlessly through the streets, saving some of the bread for my supper later on. The hopelessness of the task before me, that of discovering you, filled me with a deeper despair. It was as though I were shut out from all sympathy with my kind. By what I now believe to be a kind of fate, I wandered, without knowing the direction I was taking, towards Great Porter Square. I came to the Square itself, and looked up at the name in the endeavour to read it. “Are you looking for Great Porter Square?” asked a woman who was passing by. “That’s it—where the murder was committed.” Well, it in no way concerned me. A man was murdered there. What of it? He was out of his misery. That was the substance of my reflections. He was out of his misery, as I wished I was out of mine. For the minutes were hours, every one of which deepened my despair. I worked myself into a condition so morbid and utterly wretched that I gave up all hope of finding you. I had no place to lie in that night, and on the previous night I had slept in the open. The morning light would shine upon me, penniless, starving, and so woe-begone as to be a mark for men. I began to think I had had enough of life. And all the while these gloomy thoughts were driving me to the lowest depths I continued to walk round and about the thoroughfares of the Square in which the murder had been committed. After a time, the consciousness of this forced itself upon me, and the idea entered my mind that I would go into the Square itself, and look at the house. I followed out my idea, and walked slowly round the Square until I came to No. 119. I lingered before it for a moment or two, and then walked the entire circuit; and as I did so another suggestion presented itself. From the appearance of the house I judged it to be deserted. If I could gain admittance I should have, at least, a shelter from the night for a few hours; if there were a bed in it I should have a bed; the circumstance of the murder having been committed there had no real terrors for me. I had arrived at this mental stage when I found myself once more before the house; I was munching some bread at the time. I ascended the steps and tried the street door, and as I laid my hand upon the handle a policeman came up to me and endeavoured to seize me. A sudden terror fell upon me, and I shook him off roughly, and flew as though I were flying for my life; and, as I have already described to you, as I flew, the fancy crept upon me that my presence in the Square, my trying the door, and now my flight, had brought me into deadly peril in connection with the murder. I heard the policeman running after me. He sprang his rattle; the air seemed filled with pursuing enemies hunting me down, and I flew the faster, but only to fall at last, quite exhausted, into the arms of men, in whose remarks I heard a confirmation of my fears. Then I became cooler, and was marched to a police station, mocking myself as it were in a temper of devilish taunting despair, to be accused of a crime of which no man living was more innocent. When I was asked for my name by the inspector I did not immediately answer. My own name I dared not give; nor could I give the name by which you knew me. I would endeavour to keep my disgrace from your knowledge; so I gave a false name, the first that occurred to me, Antony Cowlrick, and gave it in such a way that the police knew it to be false. After that, I was thrown into a cell, where in solitude I might repent of my crimes and misdeeds. So bitter was my mood that I resolved to keep my tongue silent and say no word about myself. I knew that I was an innocent man, and I looked forward somewhat curiously to learn by what villainous and skilful means my accusers could bring the crime of murder home to me.

I pass over the dismal weeks of my farce of a trial, and I come to our meeting in Leicester Square.

It was my first gleam of sunshine for many a week, but another was to warm me during the day. With you by my side my strength of mind, my hope returned. The only money I had was the sovereign lent to me by the Special Reporter of the “Evening Moon;” you were poorer than I, and had, when we so happily met, exhausted your resources. The very engagement ring I gave you had been pawned to enable you to live. Money was necessary. How could I obtain it? Could I not apply to one of my former friends? I ran over in my mind the list of those whose people lived in London, and I paused at the name of Adolph, who had played so memorable a part in the Sydney Campbell tragedy. His parents lived in London, and were wealthy. If Adolph were home I would appeal to him, and solicit help from him. We drove to his father’s house, stopping on the way at a barber’s, by whose aid I made myself more presentable. Adolph was in London, and luckily at home. I sent up my name, and he came to me, and wished me to enter the house, and be introduced to his people; but I pointed to my clothes and refused. He accompanied me from his house, and when we were in a secluded spot I told him my story under a pledge of secrecy. He has a good heart, and he expressed himself as owing me a debt of gratitude which he should never be able to repay. I pointed out to him how he could repay me, and the generous-hearted lad gave me not only a hundred pounds, but a bill, long-dated, which a money-lender discounted for me, and which placed me in possession of a comparatively large sum of money. I hope to be able to pay this debt. I think I shall be, in the course of time.