CHAPTER XIV
THE LADY'S HANDKERCHIEF WHICH CONSTABLE POND PICKED UP IN CATCHPOLE SQUARE

"The Little Busy Bee" was an afternoon newspaper with a great circulation, which took for its motto the familiar lines: -

 
"How doth the Little Busy Bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From ev'ry opening flow'r."
 

To this journal Dick had been an occasional contributor, and he was responsible for a paragraph which appeared in its columns on the day following Mrs. Death's visit to the police station:

"BISHOP STREET POLICE COURT. – A respectable woman, in great distress of mind, accompanied by her little daughter, begged permission to make a statement to the magistrate. It appears that her husband, Mr. Abel Death, residing at 7, Draper's Mews, and employed as a clerk in the office of Mr. Samuel Boyd of Catchpole Square, quite suddenly received his discharge last Friday night, and came home greatly distressed by the dismissal, as well as by pecuniary difficulties and by sickness in his family. Later in the night, at about ten o'clock, he went out, with the intention, as he stated, of making an appeal to his employer to reinstate him. He did not return home, and from that night his wife has heard nothing of him. Mrs. Death has been several times to Catchpole Square, in the hope of obtaining some information from Mr. Boyd, but as her knocking at the door has met with no response the presumption is that that gentleman is out of town. The magistrate said he was sure the press would give publicity to her husband's disappearance, and there was no doubt, if the paragraphs in the papers came to Mr. Boyd's notice, that he would write and tell her what he knows of the movements of his late clerk. Compassion was aroused by the evident ill health of the child, who appears to be suffering from bronchial trouble, and whose efforts to restrain herself from coughing, in order that the court should not be disturbed, were very pitiable. The magistrate awarded the poor woman ten shillings from the poor box, and she left the court in the deepest distress, her little girl clinging to her gown."

Dick was surprised not to see his uncle in court. Inspector Robson had promised to be present, and it was seldom that he broke a promise. Ascribing his absence to official duties elsewhere, Dick parted with Mrs. Death at the police court door, and promising to call and see her next day, he wrote his paragraph for "The Little Busy Bee," and leaving it at the office, went to Paradise Row to secure the room which Mrs. Pond had to let.

It was that little woman's washing day, and, like the maid in the nursery rhyme, she was hanging up clothes in her back yard. Hearing the knock she hurried to the door, with her sleeves tucked up to her shoulder, and wiping her hands on a towel. She wore an apron with a bib, and tucked in the bib was the lady's handkerchief which Constable Pond had picked up the previous night. She had been about to plunge it into the washtub when she heard the knock, and she had hastily slipped it in there as she hurried to the door.

"Constable Applebee tells me you have a room to let," said Dick.

"Yes, we have, sir," replied Mrs. Pond, her rosy face, which was of the apple-dumpling order, glowing with delight, "and very good it is of him to recommend us. I hope you won't mind the state I'm in. I'm doing the washing." She said this very simply; there was no false pride about Mrs. Pond.

"I shall ask you to do mine," said Dick, "if the room suits me."

"I shouldn't mind, sir. I'll show you the room if you'll be good enough to follow me."

She preceded him up the narrow flight of stairs, and opened the door. It was a small room, but it was clean and tidy, and sufficiently furnished for Dick's requirements.

"The rent?" asked Dick.

"Would three-and-six a week be too much, sir?" she asked anxiously.

"Not a bit," replied Dick, "if you'll give me a latchkey."

"We can do that, sir. Pond had an extra one made on purpose. 'If it's a gentleman,' he said, 'let him have it. If it's a lady she can't have a latchkey, no, not if she begged for it on her bended knees."

"I'll take the room, Mrs. Pond," said Dick, with a genial smile, "and I'll give you a week's rent in advance, if it's only for the confidence you place in me."

Nervously plucking at her bib as she received the money, she displaced the handkerchief, which fluttered to the ground. Dick stooped to pick it up, and his face grew white as he saw, written in marking ink in a corner, the name of "Florence." He recognised Florence's writing; at that moment he had one at his breast, bearing the same inscription.

CHAPTER XV
DICK COMES TO AN ARRANGEMENT WITH CONSTABLE POND

"Dear me, sir!" said Mrs. Pond, who had noticed that he had turned pale. "Are you taken ill?"

"It is nothing, nothing," replied Dick, hurriedly, and contradicted himself by adding, "It must be the perfume on this handkerchief. There are perfumes that make me feel faint."

"I don't think there's any scent on it, sir," said Mrs. Pond, "leastways, I didn't notice any. Some scents do have that effect upon people. There's a cousin of mine who faints dead away at the smell of a hot boiled egg. There's no accounting for things, is there, sir?"

"No, there's not. May I ask if you got this handkerchief from the lady whose name is marked on it?"

"Oh, no, sir. Pond gave it me."

"Did he obtain it from the lady?"

"There!" exclaimed Mrs. Pond. "That's just what I said to him. We had a regular scene. 'You're jealous, Polly,' he said, laughing, and he worked me up so that I as good as threw it in the fire. Then he told me that he knew no more about the lady than I did, and that he picked it up in the street."

"Whereabouts, Mrs. Pond?"

"He didn't say, sir. It's pretty, ain't it? Quite a lady's. I shouldn't have minded if he'd picked up a dozen of 'em. I've got an aunt who is always picking up things. It commenced when she was a little girl. She found a farthing that had been sanded over, and thinking it was a golden sovereign she went into a milk-shop and asked for change. She cried her eyes out when they told her what it was, There's hardly a week she don't find something. Some people are made that way, sir."

"Yes, yes," said Dick, rather impatiently, "is your husband in the house? I should like to see him."

"I expect him home every minute, sir. Why, there he is, opening the street door just as we're talking of him. If you'll excuse me, sir, I'll run down to him."

"Do. And ask him to be kind enough to come up and speak to me."

She nodded, and ran from the room with a light step, leaving the handkerchief behind her in her haste to tell her husband that she had got a lodger; and presently Constable Pond's heavier step was heard on the stairs. His face beamed with satisfaction when Dick, stepping into the passage, invited him into the room.

"Can I believe my eyes, sir!" he exclaimed. "This is what I call a downright piece of good luck. Well, I am glad to see you here, sir!" His eyes fell upon the handkerchief in Dick's hand. "If I don't mistake, that's the handkerchief my missis left behind her. She asked me to fetch it down to her."

"It is about this handkerchief I wish to speak to you," said Dick; "and for the sake of all parties, Constable Pond, it is as well that our conversation should be private and confidential."

"Certainly, sir," said Constable Pond, his countenance falling at the unusual gravity of Dick's voice and manner.

"She told me you picked it up in the street."

"She told you true, sir."

Now did Constable Pond feel the sting of conscience; now did it whisper that he had been guilty of a breach of duty in not depositing the handkerchief at the police station, with an account of how he came by it; now did the thought of certain penalties afflict him. Here was Dick Remington, Inspector Robson's own nephew, opening up a case with the unuttered words, "From information received."

"I have a particular reason for wishing to know where, and when, and under what circumstances, you found it," said Dick.

"It won't go beyond this room, I hope, sir. You won't use the information against me?"

"I give you my word I will not."

"I ought to have handed it in and made my report," said Constable Pond, with a rueful air, "but I didn't think there was any harm in my giving it to the missis. Applebee and me were in Catchpole Square last night, and he was talking of shadders when he thought he saw one. He run across and caught hold of it, but it slipped from him and was gone like a flash. He called to me and we ran after it through Deadman's Court; we couldn't see which way we were going, so we knocked our heads together, and my helmet fell off. I stooped to pick it up, and there was the handkerchief underneath it. If I had considered a moment I shouldn't have put it in my pocket, but we don't always do the thing we ought."

"You did not tell Applebee that you had found anything?"

"No, sir, I did not, and sorry enough I am for it now. It sha'n't occur again, I promise you."

"As the matter has gone so far without anybody knowing anything about it but ourselves, I don't see the necessity of mentioning it to anyone."

"If such is your wish, sir," said Constable Pond, gaining confidence, "it sha'n't be."

"And tell your wife not to speak about it."

"I'll tell her, sir."

"Because you see, Mr. Pond, as it is too late to undo what's done, it might get you into trouble."

"I see that, sir," said Constable Pond, ruefully.

"So there's an end of the matter. As for the handkerchief I'll take possession of it, and if it should happen that any question is raised concerning it-of which there is not the least probability-I will say that I found it. That will clear you entirely."

"I'm ever so much obliged to you for getting me out of the mess," said Constable Pond.

Shaking hands with him, Dick accompanied him downstairs, and after receiving the latchkey and exchanging a few pleasant words with Mrs. Pond, he left the house greatly troubled in his mind.

"There's more in this than meets the eye, Polly," said Constable Pond, when he had explained to her what had passed between him and Dick. "That young fellow spoke fair and square, but he's got something up his sleeve, for all that."

"Oh, you silly!" answered Mrs. Pond. "I know what he's got up his sleeve."

"Do you, now?" said Constable Pond, refreshing himself with a kiss. "Well, if that don't beat everything! Give it a name, old girl."

"Why, a sweetheart, you goose, and her name's Florence. He's going straight to her this minute."

"Is he? Then I hope she'll be able to satisfy him why she was in Catchpole Square last night-always supposing that it was her as dropped the handkerchief there."

Mrs. Pond was not far wrong, for Dick was now on his way to Aunt Rob's house, in the hope of seeing Florence, over whom some trouble seemed to be hanging. He tried in vain to rid himself of the belief that it was Florence whom Constable Applebee had surprised in Catchpole Square; all the probabilities pointed that way. In heaven's name what took her there at that hour of the night? Search his mind as he might, he could find no answer to the question. The handkerchief was hers, but there were a hundred ways of accounting for its being in the possession of another woman. Still, the longer he thought the heavier seemed to grow the weight of circumstantial evidence. Fearing he knew not what he accelerated his steps, as if swiftness of motion would ward off the mysterious danger which threatened the woman he adored, the woman who could never be his, but for whose dear sake he would have shed his heart's blood.