On the night following the regrettable disaster to the Seahorse I was back again in the cheap and rather comfortable rooms I had occupied for a couple of years or so in Keppel Street, Chelsea. It is a thoroughfare in which nearly every house exhibits the enticing legend, “Apartments to Let,” mostly in permanent, neatly-framed signs of black and gold.
Mrs. Richardson, my landlady, was “full” and had been for a year past, so No. 83, where I had diggings, was a quiet, eminently respectable house, a fitting, residence for a man of my serious calling. When, however, I returned with the Mysterious Man in a well-worn seaman’s suit, unkempt head, and his sword in hand instead of a cane, Mrs. Richardson looked askance at me.
I explained that my friend had come to live with me for a few weeks, and that I should want an extra room; when she, good soul, looked him up and down, noticed the big cracks in his sea-boots and the slit in the sleeve of his pea-jacket, and rather reluctantly replied that she would turn one of the servants out and prepare the room for my friend.
Presently, however, I took her aside and explained the curious facts, whereupon she said: —
“Lor’, doctor! Only fancy! The old gentleman may be two hundred years old!”
“Ah!” I remarked, “his age is only one of the minor mysteries connected with the affair. It is in order to solve them that I’ve decided that he shall remain under my care and treatment. He’s just a little wrong in his head, you know. Nothing at all serious.”
“He didn’t answer me when I spoke to him.”
“No, for a very good reason. He’s dumb.”
“Two hundred years old, insane, and dumb! Lawk a mercy! He is a strange old gentleman.”
“Well, Mrs. Richardson,” I said, “you’ve been very kind to me for the past two years, and I hope that you will do me the favour of looking after my friend.”