In the right-hand glass, owing to our slanting position across the road, I could see reflected, a few yards off, the corner of the street out of which we had just turned, with the lamp which stood there, and above the lamp the name of the street, which, though reversewise on the mirror, I made out to be ‘Hauraki Street.’ The queer name attracted me; and I was wondering what colonial experiences could have led the builder to select it, when I saw the reflected figure of a man come into the light of the lamp along the road in which we stood. He was young, but dishevelled and dirty, and evidently wet through. His clothes, bad as their condition was, looked somehow as if their wearer had been, or ought now to be, in a better condition of body than his present one. He stared desolately about him for a while, as if to see whether there could be any other creature so miserable as to be lounging purposelessly about, without an umbrella, in such a place on such a night. A neighbouring clock struck eight, and he seemed to turn his head and listen till the clangour ceased. Then he inspected the sleeves of his coat, as people always do when unduly damp, and drew one of them across his forehead, taking off his hat for the purpose, as though hot from exercise. Then he carefully produced from inside the sodden and melancholy hat a folded piece of paper and a clay-pipe. He filled the pipe from the paper, restored the latter to the hat, and put the hat on his head. Then he looked helplessly at the pipe. I guessed that the poor wretch had neither a match nor a penny to buy one. A thought seemed to strike him. He looked up suddenly at the lamp, and I saw his face for the first time. I am an observer of faces. This one was peculiarly short and broad, with a projecting sharp-pointed chin, a long slit of a mouth, turned down at the corners; as it was now half open in perplexity, it disclosed a conspicuous blank, caused by the loss of one or more front teeth. The eyes were small and dark, and half-shut with a curious prying air. This was all I noticed; for now the man began awkwardly and laboriously to ‘swarm’ the lamp-post; evidently with the view of getting a light for his pipe. Having got about half-way to the top, he incautiously stopped to rest, and instantly slid to the bottom. Patiently he began all over again; and I now saw that if he was not altogether tipsy, he was something very like it. This time his efforts were so ill-judged that he caved in the melancholy hat against the cross-bar of the lamp; and the last I saw of him as my picture vanished at the whisking round of the hansom, he was blindly waving his pipe at the lamp-glass, his head buried in the wreck of his hat, as he vainly endeavoured to introduce the pipe through the opening underneath, and beginning once more to slide impotently down the shaft.
I got home without further adventure in time not to be missed by my little invalid; but for several days the queer street-name abode with me, as the merest trifles will haunt an overanxious mind, such as mine then was. I repeated it to myself hundreds of times; I made it into a sort of idiotic refrain or chorus, with which I kept time to my own footsteps on my daily tramps. I tried to make rhymes to it, with indifferent success; and altogether it was some weeks before the tiresome phantom finally departed.
Also, I often wondered whether the drenched young man with the crushed hat had managed to get a light after all.
Twelve years had gone, and with them my troubles—such troubles at least as had been with me at the time of the beginning of this story. I was now a prosperous solicitor, with a large and varied practice, and with a comfortable home on the northern heights of London, wherein to cherish the dear wife, no longer sick, who had been my loving companion through the years of scarcity. The firm’s practice was a varied one; but personally I devoted myself to that branch of it in which I had begun my professional life—the criminal law. In this I had fairly won myself a name both as an advocate and a lawyer—often very different things—which tended to make me a richer man every day. And I am glad to be able to say that I had added to this reputation another yet more valuable—that of being an honourable and honest man.
Late one afternoon, as I sat in my office after a long day at the Central Criminal Court, making preparations for my homeward flight, a stranger was shown in to me. He sat down and began his story, to which I at first listened with professional attention and indifference. But I soon became a trifle more interested; for this, as it seemed, was a tale of long-deferred vengeance, falling after the lapse of years upon the right head; such as we lawyers meet with more often in sensational novels—of which we are particularly fond—than in the course of practice.
Some dozen years ago, he said, there had lived in a remote suburb of London an elderly maiden lady, named Miss Harden, the only daughter of a retired merchant skipper, who had got together a very tolerable sum of money for a man of his class. Dying, he had left it all to his only living relative and friend, his daughter; and on the interest thereof she managed to live comfortably, and even to save quite a third of her income. These moneys she—being, like many maiden ladies, of a suspicious nature—always declined to invest in any way, but kept them in an oaken cupboard in her sitting-room, which cupboard she was accustomed to glorify for its impregnable nature, when the danger she ran by keeping so much money about the house was represented to her. Perhaps she was fortified in her obstinacy by the consideration that she was not entirely alone and unprotected, though most people thought that such protection as she had was worse than none. It consisted in the presence of an orphaned nephew, to whose mother, on her deathbed, Miss Harden had solemnly promised that she would never forsake the child. She had been as good as her word, and better—or worse; for she had treated the boy with such foolish indulgence that he had grown up as pretty a specimen of the blackguard as could be found in the neighbourhood. After being expelled from school, he had never attempted to improve himself or earn his own living in any way, except by betting (and losing), and by making free with certain cash of his first and only employer; which questionable attempt at providing for himself would certainly have led to his being for some time provided for by his country, but for the tears and prayers of his aunt, and the sacrifice of a round sum out of her hoardings. From that time he lived with her, and she cherished and endured him as only women can. Scolding him when he came home tipsy at night, putting him carefully to bed, and forgiving him the next morning, only to scold and put him to bed again the same evening; so, with little difference, went on their lives for years.
But at last this loving patience began to wear out, and as the aunt got older and more irritable, the nephew’s little ways caused louder and more frequent disagreements. One morning, things came to a climax. She caught him actually trying to set free the imprisoned secrets of the impregnable cupboard with a pocket-knife. Being interrupted and violently abused—the old lady was very ready with her tongue—he turned and struck her. She did then and there what she had threatened often of late; ordered him out of the house, and what was more, saw him out. There was rather a scene at the street-door, and the lookers-on heard him say, in answer to her vows that she would never see him again, ‘When you do see me again, you’ll be sorry enough;’ or words to that effect. The last time he was known to have been in the neighbourhood was about three o’clock that afternoon, in a public-house close by, which he used to haunt. He was then in a maudlin state, and was descanting to a mixed audience on his wrongs and on the meanness of his relative. He further produced the knife with which he had attempted the cupboard, and was foolish enough to say that ‘he wished he had tried it on the old woman herself, and he would too, before the day was out.’
All this greatly amused his rough hearers, who supplied him well with liquor, and generally kept the game alive, until the landlord, becoming jealous of the reputation of his house, turned him out of doors. From that moment he disappeared; but the same night a horrible murder was committed. The aunt had sent her one servant out for half an hour. The girl left at a quarter to eight, and returned at a quarter past, to find the poor old maid lying dead on the floor, while the oak cupboard was open and empty. Screaming with horror, the girl called in help; and one among the crowd that filled the house before the police came picked up on the floor a knife, which he identified as the very one which the nephew, whom he knew well, had exhibited that afternoon at the public-house. He repeated this evidence at the subsequent inquest, and it was confirmed by many others who knew both the knife and its owner. A verdict of wilful murder was returned against the nephew, whom we will call John Harden, but who had disappeared completely and entirely. Inquiries, advertisements, and the minute description of him which was posted, together with the offer of a heavy government reward for his apprehension, throughout the three kingdoms—all were useless. In the course of time the affair died out, except as an occasional remembrance in the minds of those who had been most intimately connected with it.
But on the afternoon of the very day on which the stranger waited upon me, John Harden had been recognised in the Strand by my informant. He wore a well-fitting suit of dark clothes, and was, in fact, the confidential servant of a retired Australian millionaire, who had come to England to spend the rest of his days there. On being addressed by his name, he had at first appeared surprised, though in no way alarmed; but almost immediately admitted that he had formerly gone by that name, though he had for years borne another. His accuser straightway gave him into the custody of the nearest constable, charging him with the murder. Then indeed the unfortunate man showed the greatest horror and disturbance of mind, protesting that he did not even know his aunt was dead; that he had intended to go and see her as soon as he could be relieved from attendance on his master; that he had even written to her several times, but having received no reply, had concluded that she was determined to renounce him entirely. He was locked up at the station for the night, and was to be brought before the magistrate in the morning; and my informant’s object in coming to me was to instruct me to prosecute, not being content to leave that duty to the police. He was, it seemed, the very man who had, as already stated, picked up the knife with which the murder had been committed; and he expressed himself as being extremely anxious that justice should be done, and that the murderer should not escape. He stated that, though badly enough off twelve years ago, he had since succeeded in trade; that he knew the poor old lady well, having done many an odd job about the house for her; and that he was willing, for justice’ sake, to put his hand as reasonably far into his pocket as could be expected. As he sat opposite to me, his face burning with indignation, I could not help thinking that it would be well for the country and the lawyers if all citizens were as prompt as my new client to spend their means in exposing and punishing crime in which they had no individual interest. I said something to this effect, and my remarks were received with a proper pride, tempered by modesty. ‘He hoped he knowed his dooty as a man, and tried to do it.’
It so happened that I was obliged to leave town next day, to attend to certain matters connected with an estate of which I was a trustee, in another part of the country. I told him this, adding that the magistrate would certainly send the case for trial, and that I should be back in town in time for the next Old Bailey sessions, and that I would be responsible that the case should receive proper attention in the meantime. He merely said that he left the matter in my hands, and that if I said it would be all right, he was content, and so departed, engaging to attend to have his evidence taken down next morning. I went to the office of a brother practitioner on whom I knew I could rely, handed him my written instructions, requested him to take up the case and work it until my return, and then did what every business man should be able to do—wiped the subject altogether out of my mind for the present.