I found myself in a small shop with another room beyond, on the swing doors of which were the words, “To the Hairdressing Saloon.” There was no one behind the counter, nor, so far as I could see, was there any one in the hair-cutting rooms. But on the counter before me lay half a dozen letters, apparently thrown there by an impatient postman who could not wait for the proprietor’s return. One of them was for “Mr. Robert Bakewell Green,” the inscription being in his own handwriting; another was addressed in a woman’s hand to “Mr. Henry Jeanes,” and I saw that it bore a Norwegian stamp and the Stavanger postmark. Could “Henry Jeanes” be the name under which James Mullen was having letters sent to him?
CHAPTER XVI
HENRY JEANES, ALIAS JAMES MULLEN
It had been raining heavily when the train drew up at the Cotley platform, but as I did not know how far I might have to walk I had put up my umbrella when leaving the station only to put it down again as I entered the hairdresser’s shop. I was holding the half-closed umbrella in my hand when my eye caught sight of the two letters. To sweep them as if by accident into the folds of the umbrella was the work of a second, and then as I turned quickly round I saw a man without a hat and wearing a white apron slip out of the door of a publichouse opposite and run hastily across the road towards the shop, wiping his mouth with his hand as he did so.
As I expected, he was the proprietor of the establishment, and after wishing me good-morning and apologising for being out of the way by explaining that he had been across the road to borrow a postage stamp, he proceeded to tuck me up in a white sheet preparatory to cutting my hair.
The demand for postage stamps had evidently been heavy that afternoon, and the task of affixing them had no doubt resulted in an uncomfortable dryness of the mouth, which necessitated the frequent use of liquid. Under the circumstances I considered this rather fortunate than otherwise, for the man was not unaware of his condition, and did his best to palliate it by being so obligingly communicative in regard to any question I asked him that I could, had I wished it, have acquainted myself with all that he knew about every customer who patronised his establishment.
“You have letters addressed here sometimes, don’t you?” I asked, as he was brushing my hair.
“Yes, sir, we ’ave letters addressed ’ere,” he made answer; “but strictly confidential, of course,” whispering this in my ear with drunken gravity, and adding, after a pause, with a meaning leer, “Hand very convenient too, under certain circumstances. Is there hany little thing you can do for us in that way yourself, sir? If so we should be ’appy to accept your commission.”
The only little thing I was minded to do for him was to kick him, and that right heavily, but repressing the unregenerate desire of the natural man, I affected to be thinking the matter over, and then replied—
“Why, yes, I think you might. My name is Smithers—Alfred John Smithers, so if any letters addressed to that name come here you’ll know they are for me, won’t you?”
“Certainly,” he said. “Only too ’appy to oblige a customer at hany time. Living ’ere, sir?”