CHAPTER IV

MR. RICHARD PORTLAND MAKES A SINGULAR PROPOSITION TO ME

In the evening I received another visitor, in the person of Mr. Richard Portland, Mr. Melladew's brother-in-law. A shrewd, hard-headed man, but much cast down at present. It was clear to me, after a little conversation with him, that his nieces, Mary and the hapless Lizzie, had been the great inducement of his coming home to England, and I learnt from him that there was no doubt about the news of Mary Melladew's mysterious disappearance.

Mr. Portland was a thoroughly practical man, even in matters of sentiment. It was sentiment truly that had brought him home, but his expectations had been blasted by the news of the tragedy which had greeted him on his arrival. He was deeply moved by the affliction which had fallen upon his sister's family; his indignation was aroused against the monster who had brought this fearful blow upon them; and, in addition, he was bitterly angry at being deprived of the society of two lovely, interesting girls, in whose hearts he had naturally hoped to find a place.

"My brother is fit for nothing," he said. "He is prostrate, and cannot be roused to action. He moans and moans, and clasps his head. My sister is no better; she goes out of one fainting fit into another."

"What can they do?" I asked. "What would you have them do?"

"Not sit idly down," he replied curtly. "That is not the way to discover the murderer; and discovered he must and shall be, if it costs me my fortune."

"There have been murders," I remarked, "in the very heart of London, and though years have passed, the murderers still walk the streets undetected."

"It is incredible," he said.

"It is true," was my rejoinder.

"But surely," he urged, "this will not be classed among them?"

"I trust not."

"Money will do much."

"Much, but not everything. You have been many years in Australia. Have not such crimes been committed even there without the perpetrators being brought to justice?"

"Yes," he replied, "but Australia and London are not to be spoken of in the same breath. There, a man may succeed in making himself lost in wild and vast tracts of country. He can walk for days without meeting a living soul. Here he is surrounded by his fellow-creatures."

"Your argument," I said, "tells against yourself. Here, in the crush and turmoil of millions, each atom with its own individual and overwhelming cares and anxieties, the murderer is comparatively safe. No one notices him. Why should they, in such a seething crowd? In the bush he is the central figure; he walks along with a hang-dog look; he must halt at certain places for food, and his guilty manner draws attention upon him. In that lies his danger. But this is profitless argument. For my part, I see no reason why the murderer of your unfortunate niece should not be discovered."

"Sensibly said. It must be a man who committed the deed."

"That has to be proved," I remarked.

"Surely you don't believe it was a woman?" exclaimed Mr. Portland.

"Such things have been. In these cases of mystery it is always an error to rush at a conclusion and to set to work upon it, to the exclusion of all others. It is as great an error to reject a theory because of its improbability. My dear sir, nothing is improbable in this city of ours; I am almost tempted to say that nothing is impossible. The columns of our newspapers teem with romance which once upon a time would have been regarded as fables."

Mr. Portland looked at me thoughtfully as he said, "You are doubtless right. It needs such a mind as yours to bring the matter to light-a mind both comprehensive and microscopic. There is some satisfaction in speaking to you; a man hears things worth listening to. The unpractical stuff that has been buzzing in my ears ever since I arrived from Southampton has almost driven me crazy. Give me your careful attention for a few moments; it may be something in your pocket."

He paused awhile, as though considering a point, before he resumed.

"My coming home to the old country has been a bitter disappointment to me. Quite apart from the sympathy I feel for the parents upon whom such a dreadful blow has fallen, the news which greeted me on my arrival has upset the plans I had formed. Over there" – with a jerk of his thumb over his right shoulder, as though Australia lay immediately in the rear of his chair-"where I made a pretty considerable fortune, I had no family ties, and was often chewing the cud of loneliness, lamenting that I had no one to care for, and no one to care for me. When I received the portraits of my nieces I was captivated by them, and I thought of them continually. Here was the very thing I was sighing for, a human tie to banish the devil of loneliness from my heart. The beautiful young girls belonged to me in a measure, and would welcome and love me. I should have a home to go to where I should be greeted with affection. I won't dwell upon what I thought, because I hate a man who spins a thing out threadbare, but you will understand it. I came home to enjoy the society of my two beautiful nieces, and I find what you know of. Well, one poor girl has gone, and cannot be recalled; but the other, Mary, so far as we know, is alive; and yet she, too, disappeared last night, and nothing has been heard of her. She must be found; if she is in danger she must be rescued; she must be restored to her parents' arms, and to mine. Something else. The murderer of my poor niece Lizzie must be discovered and brought to justice-must be, I say! There shall be no miscarriage here; the villain shall not escape. Now, you-excuse me if I speak abruptly, I mean no disrespect by it; it is only my way of speaking; and I don't wish to be rude or to pry into your private affairs, far from it. What I mean is, money?"

I stared at him in amazement; he had stated his meaning in one pregnant word, but he had failed in conveying to my mind any comprehension of it.

"Now, I put it to you," he said, "and I hope you'll take it kindly. I give you my word that my intentions are good. You are not a rich man, are you?"

"No," I answered promptly; for he was so frank and open, and was speaking in a tone of such deep concern, that I could not take offence at a question which at other times I should have resented. "I am not."

"And you wouldn't turn your nose up at a thousand pounds?"

"No, indeed I would not," I said heartily, wondering what on earth the rich Australian was driving at.

"Well, then," he said, touching my breast with his forefinger, "you discover the murderer of my poor niece Lizzie, and the thousand pounds are yours. I will give the money to you. Something else: find my niece Mary, and restore her to her parents and to me, and I'll make it two thousand. Come, you don't have such a chance every day."

"That is true," I said, and I could not help liking the old fellow for this display of heart. "But it is too remote for consideration."

"Not at all, my dear sir, not at all," and again he touched my breast with his forefinger; "there is nothing remote in it."

"But why," I asked, not at all convinced by his insistence, "do you offer me such a reward, instead of going to the police?"

"Partly because of what you said, confirmed-though I didn't think of it at the time you mentioned it-by what I have read, about murders being committed in the very heart of London, without the murderers ever being discovered."

"I was simply stating a fact."

"Exactly; and it speaks well for the police, doesn't it? But I have only explained part of my reason for offering you the reward. It isn't alone what you said about undiscovered murderers, it is because you spoke like a sensible man, who, once having his finger on a clue, wouldn't let it slip till he'd worked it right out; and like a man who, while he was working that clue, wouldn't let others slip that might happen to come in his way. I've opened my mind to you, and I've nothing more to say until you come to me to say something on your own account. O, yes I have, though; I was forgetting that we're strangers to one another, and that it wouldn't be reasonable for me to expect you to take my word for a thousand pounds. Well, then, to show you that I am in earnest, I lay on the table Bank of England notes for a hundred pounds. Here they are, on account."

To my astonishment he had pulled out his pocket-book and extracted ten ten-pound notes, and there they lay on the table before me. I would have entreated him to take them back, feeling that it would be the falsest of false pretences to accept them, but before I could speak again he was gone.

I called my wife into the room, and told her what had passed. She regarded it in the same light as myself, but I noted a little wistful look in her eyes as she glanced at the bank-notes.

"A thousand pounds!" she sighed, half-longingly, half-humorously. "If we could only call it ours! Why, it would make our fortune!"

"It would, my dear," I said, wishing in my heart of hearts that I had a thousand pounds of my own to throw into her lap. "But this particular thousand pounds which the good old fellow has so generously offered will never come into our possession. So let us dismiss it from our minds."

"Mr. Portland," said my wife, "evidently thinks you would make a good detective."

"That may or may not be, though his opinion of me is altogether too flattering. Certainly, if I had a clue to the discovery of this terrible mystery-"

"You would follow it up," said my wife, finishing the sentence for me.

"Undoubtedly I would, with courage and determination. With such a reward in view, nothing should shake me off. I would prove myself a very bloodhound. But there," I said, half ashamed at being led away, "I am sailing in the clouds. Let's talk no more about it. As for Mr. Portland's hundred pounds I will put the notes carefully by, and return them to him at the first opportunity. Poor Mrs. Melladew! How I pity her and Melladew! I shall never forget the picture of the father sitting in that chair, moaning, 'My poor, poor Lizzie! O, my child, my child!' It was heartbreaking."

My wife and I talked a great deal of it during the night, and before we went to bed I had purchased at least seven or eight newspapers of the newsboys who passed through the street crying out new editions and latest news of the dreadful deed. But there was nothing really new. Matters were in the same state as when the body of the hapless girl was found in Victoria Park early in the morning. I recognised how dangerous was the delay. Every additional hour increased the chances of the murderer's escape from the hands of justice.

I did not sleep well; my slumbers were disturbed by fantastic, horrible dreams. It was eleven o'clock on Sunday morning before I quitted my bed.