The Hunchback of Westminster

As it chanced, there were three or four padlocks attached to the case, and each one had to be opened by a separate key, so that over a minute elapsed before the Hunchback succeeded in raising the lid and in disclosing to view what the box really contained – a neat-fitting wig of black and a beard. These he fitted on his head and face, giving him the appearance of some Polish Jew who had but newly arrived on these hospitable shores.

“What on earth can he be up to?” interjected Casteno, who was really now worked up to a painful degree of nervous tension.

“Nothing good, I’m certain,” I returned rather grimly. “My experience has always been that, when men are ashamed of their own features in the ordinary business of life, they are also ashamed of the deeds which they propose to do with a false countenance.”

All this time, however, old Peter was busy in putting the finishing touches to his disguise – in changing his coat and vest, in donning some greasy rags, which he rounded off by a muffler, a coat green with age, and a slouch hat so dirty and worn that few would venture to pick it up from the street, much less place it on their own heads. Finally, after a long and narrow inspection in a beautiful old Venetian mirror that hung on the wall, he seemed satisfied with the change he had effected in his appearance, for he stepped briskly to the mantelpiece and touched a small electric bell, which sounded somewhere high above our heads.

For a moment it looked as though the summons would not be answered. But only for a moment. Later we caught the sounds of tired feet clamping heavily down the wooden stairs until they reached the shop level, then the door of the parlour (I can call it nothing else, it was so typical of its middle-class namesake), was thrust open, and a youth entered bearing a most extraordinary resemblance to my companion Don José Casteno!

Unfortunately, I hadn’t time to remark on this further before the hunchback himself began to speak, and I had to bend all my energies and senses to catching the drift of the conversation, which was carried on in a low foreign-sounding tone.

“Well, Paul,” began the hunchback briskly, “I have taken your advice, like a good father, and have disguised myself in the costume you suggested. What do you think of the transformation? Is it a success?”

“It will do all right,” said the tired-looking youth sullenly. “Only take care how you hold your shoulders. Most people give themselves away by the fashion in which they carry themselves, and you, as a hunchback, worst of all.”

Zouche, like most deformed persons, was painfully sensitive, but to my surprise he did not seem to resent the youth’s bluntness. “Any other advice?” he proceeded, “mind, I want all your tips. I may be gone for a long time.”

“No,” said the youth he called Paul, slowly and critically. “There’s not much to find fault with just at present. Don’t get excited, though, whatever happens. Train your hands not to reveal your true feelings, and, above all, distort that tell-tale voice of yours. Pal in with some foreigner for a day or two, and pick up his trick of speech and intonation.”

“I will, I will,” replied the hunchback. “And now for those manuscripts. Have you prepared those dummies?”

“Yes,” answered Paul. “Here they are – the three of them – and I’ve taken so much pains with the writing which I have faked on them that I would defy anybody to tell, under a day’s examination with microscope and acid, that they are not the real, genuine article you bought for one thousand eight hundred pounds at the sale of Father Calasanctius’ effects at the auction mart.”

“Good,” cried Zouche, rubbing his hands together in the most approved method of the Jewish pedlar. “Pass them over to me.” And the youth produced from a leather case which he had been carrying unperceived by his side three documents so exactly like the real thing I had fought for that I could have sworn myself that they were in real truth the three coveted manuscripts of the sacred lake!

The hunchback, however, did not pass them lightly. He took each one over to the window and examined it with great care, and only when he had assured himself that certain marks were present on each one of them, that all alike presented the same appearance of age and use and treatment, did he place them carefully in the steel box from which he had taken his wig and beard. Then he turned the keys in the locks, and, mounting a chair, he thrust open a secret panel in the rafters, pushed inside this hiding-place the box with the forged documents – as it happened, within two feet of the exact spot where we were stretched, full length, listening to his conversation.

Then he got down and turned again to Paul. “That is all right,” he said gaily. “That is a good thing done, and I shouldn’t be surprised if in a critical moment it doesn’t save both my life and my fortune. Now you have got your lesson by heart, haven’t you? You know what to do when any of those men like Hugh Glynn or the Earl of Fotheringay, or any of those Jesuit spies, come pottering about here! You play the avaricious fool, do you see? Pretend that you know a lot, and that you could tell them a lot if it were only made worth your while, and bleed each one of them for all the cash you can, in return for the information that I have vanished, and also for permission to turn this shop upside down to find the manuscripts, which you can hint you are certain are concealed somewhere about here.”

“All right, I’m game,” said the youth, and his eyes gleamed with malice and wickedness.

“When you’ve made all you can out of the dolts sell those forgeries to the highest bidder. My own idea is that the Jesuits will pay you better than anybody else, but perhaps Lord Cyril Cuthbertson may play you up too closely with the aid of some Scotland Yard detectives. In that case, let him have the honour of buying the spurious deeds, do you see? It’s a pity these foolish Britishers don’t roll over in the mud of their own cleverness sometimes.”

The conversation ended, and I turned rapidly to the Spaniard.

“It’s no good for you to stay here, as we have arranged,” I whispered to Casteno, who now gazed at me appealingly with eyes large with nervousness and apprehension. “The hunchback won’t be seen at Westminster for some time to come. He intends to disappear – as you’ve heard, the same as myself – but he must disappear in company with one of us. Now, who is it to be? You or I?”

“I must go,” quickly returned the Spaniard. “Don’t you remember you have to rush off this afternoon to Southampton to meet the royal mail steamer Atrato and to escort in safety to London a girl named Camille Velasquon, who is bringing some valuable papers from Mexico for me and for the Order of St. Bruno? I have already telegraphed to her to Plymouth to expect you. It is impossible for you to back out.”

“But are you any good at shadowing a man as artful and slippery and suspicious as Zouche?” I questioned sternly. “Think for a moment what it means to your own future if you fail.”

“I shall not fail,” said Casteno decisively, starting to make a bee line for the trap-door, through which he had entered the recess. “I have tracked scores of men in my time in the old, wild days in Mexico, when to be discovered as a spy meant that you were caught up by a lasso and strung to the nearest tree, whilst sympathising neighbours took pot-shots at you out of their revolvers. Just trust to me, and go and conduct Camille Velasquon from the vessel I mentioned to St. Bruno’s in Hampstead – that will require all your nerve, your daring, and your resolution!”

“But how shall I know how you get on? When shall I hear from you? Through what channel can we arrange a course of combined action?” I queried.

“I will communicate with you on your return from Southampton at your office in Stanton Street. If I can write to you I will. Otherwise I will have recourse to the telegraph office. But have no fear. I know the hunchback too well of old to let this slippery card pass through my fingers a moment sooner than I intend he should.” And with these strangely suggestive words he waved me an adieu, and next second had disappeared.

Time, too, was much too precious to waste. Already, as the Spaniard had engaged me in this conversation, I had caught the sounds of movement and consultation in the room beneath, and, although I would have dearly liked to learn how he could ever have met Zouche in such intimate circumstances as he indicated, and also what was the secret of his startling likeness to Paul, that wicked-looking youth beneath, I realised that I needed every second to watch the chief actor in our drama, the hunchback. So again I bent over the hole in the ceiling, and again I peered into the misty depths of the parlour and watched what this pair of scoundrels were up to.

By this time it seemed that Zouche had nearly completed all his preparations for departure, and was merely filling in the last few seconds by cramming a few sandwiches into the capacious pockets of his overcoat, whilst the tired-looking youth emptied some whiskey from the bottle on the sideboard into a flask.

The next moment the hunchback pulled his felt hat down tightly over his forehead, practically concealing the whole of his features, and snatching the flask, which was now full, he nodded a quick farewell to his companion and then hurried off. Almost immediately afterwards I heard the side door bang, and I realised that the dwarf had really gone, and I was free to set off on that curious trip to Southampton.

Chapter Ten.

The Lady from Mexico

As I rose, however, from my crouching position quite a startling climax to that morning’s adventure occurred. All at once I caught sight of the recess in which was concealed the steel box containing the manuscript forgeries, and I saw in a flash what an excellent move it would be for me to remove the thing to a place where I could conveniently lay hands upon it whenever I wanted it. In imagination I pictured the surprise of the Jesuit spies, for instance, when they had disgorged large sums to Master Paul downstairs, only to find, when the youth reached out for the deeds, they had vanished! Indeed, I am afraid I chuckled quite loudly when I whipped out my jack-knife and attacked the thin boarding that shut me off from this imitation treasure, so excellent did I conceive this act as a piece of pure inoffensive humour. Fate, too, aided me in the business, for in less than five minutes I had not only got at the precious casket but had forced the steel lid, taken out the forgeries and wrapped them up in a piece of canvas, which I placed in my pocket, and pushed the box back, but I had actually slipped out of my hiding-place and crept down the stairs to the shop, the front door of which luckily stood open.

In fact, it was not until I had got into a cab and was whirling away in the direction of Lambeth Bridge that I really appreciated what a daring thing I had done. Then I lay back in my seat and chuckled loudly.

Waterloo Station, as usual, was crowded with people hastening to one or other race meeting, a river excursion, or a boat special, but I managed to get a cosy corner in a first-class carriage of the express for Southampton, and was soon clattering through Vauxhall and Clapham Junction, hard on my journey to the Solent.

At first I admit I was too excited by the stirring scenes I had passed through to think of anything else – even Casteno’s mysterious sharpening of his dagger, his disappearance from my office, and the brutal slaughter of Colonel Napier’s spaniel. But the steady roar of the train, the ceaseless throb of the engine, soon calmed my mind and steadied my nerve, and I caught himself wondering what kind of girl could be this Camille Velasquon whom I had undertaken to meet. She could scarcely be an ordinary type of girl, I was certain, to be associated in any measure with José Casteno.

In point of fact, I eventually decided that she must be a very extraordinary girl altogether to cross from Mexico to England merely with certain valuable papers for that weird organisation of monks, the Order of St. Bruno. Further than that I don’t think I was able to make up my mind. All that suggested danger to her, an attempt at abduction, and so forth – which, remember, Casteno had warned me against – I own I could not appreciate. It is always hard to believe that perils like those lurk in this calm, peaceful England of ours. Yet they do, as I was destined to find very soon to my cost.

After this I supposed I must have napped for a time, for when next I looked out of the carriage window I found that the train was slowing its speed preparatory to entering Southampton. Luckily, the carriage I was in contained no other passengers, and I was able to pull myself together and munch a few biscuits before I had to hasten across the road outside the station and to march through the big dock gates, guarded by a burly constable, to that corner where incoming royal mail steamers are always berthed.

As it happened, the Atrato had not yet put in an appearance, and there were the usual crowds of anxious relatives, husbands, sweethearts, and loafers on the dock side, some brimming over with enjoyment at the prospect of near meetings with their loved ones, others looking nervous and fretful, as though they were the bearers of bad tidings to the returned exiles, or at all events feared the news which the incoming friends were carrying.

One woman in particular attracted my attention – a tall, commanding figure in black, in widow’s weeds, but with two of the most evil-looking eyes I had ever seen. Somehow this creature fascinated me. Her walk; her hands, which, luckily, were destitute of gloves; her expression on her thin, tightly-pressed lips; the cut of her chin when she raised her veil to get a better view of the approaching vessel, all told their striking yet deeply suggestive tale of character revealed by externals. And the tale was in every respect the same: the woman was bad, through and through.

“Who on earth can she have come to meet?” I asked myself, with the curiosity that besets most observant folk in crowds when an awkward pause has come and there is nothing to do but to wait with what patience one can find, eager to pick up any casual amusement. “Not a husband, certainly, nor a lover, for in that case she would never parade those sable garments with so much unction. It must be a friend of some sort, but then who would, or could, be a friend to so diabolical a creature as that is, even to look at?”

Just then the excitement of the boat’s arrival caught up the crowd, and I had all my attention engaged in my own work, in piloting myself well to the front, in rushing across the gangway on to the vessel, and by a judicious bribe of half-a-sovereign getting one of the stewards to conduct me straight away to the girl I was in search of – Miss Camille Velasquon – who greeted me with one of the prettiest and most honest of Spanish faces I had ever seen, and who shook my hand as warmly as though we had been friends in the long ago, for years and years. In age she could not, certainly, have been more than twenty, but there was a certain air of good style about her and her clothes that suggested wealth and a consciousness of considerable social importance.

“José telegraphed me and told me to rely on you,” she whispered in a low voice, “and I will. As a matter of fact, I have carefully studied all the other first-class passengers and there is no one amongst them whom we need fear, so we must look for enemies amongst the people on the dock side.”

“I think I can protect you all right,” I replied, with a smile as bright and infectious as her own. “But take my arm, look as though you belonged to me, as if we were brother and sister, in point of fact. What about your luggage?”

“That will be sent on,” she returned quickly, stepping out bravely beside me. “I arranged all that with the stewardess, who for the time will treat it as her own. I knew time pressed, and so I did all I could to facilitate my departure.”

“Then let us make the most of your foresight,” I said, and elbowing our way through the crowd the pair of us passed quickly out of the dock and soon hid ourselves in the refreshment room of the station, from which we passed rapidly to a slow train, which a porter explained would eventually land us in London, but would take four hours over the process.

“It is safety before speed we must study at this point,” I whispered to my companion; and we were just congratulating ourselves that we had got the carriage to ourselves as the guard’s whistle sounded, and had slipped out of Southampton with great discretion, when a most unexpected thing happened.

The carriage door opened suddenly, and in there stepped that evil-looking woman in black I had noted on the dock side.

The next instant the train rumbled off.

“Confound it,” I said to Miss Velasquon, “I never bargained for this. I think we had better change at the next station.”

Evidently the stranger heard my whisper, for she looked up.

“You may change, sir,” she said icily, “and I advise you to do so, but your companion won’t.” And her hands came together with a vicious snap.

“How – what the dickens do you mean?” I blurted out, and my eyes flashed fire.

“This,” the woman answered: “Miss Camille Velasquon, as it happens, is in my, not your, charge. Unfortunately, she is an escaped criminal lunatic, and it is my business, with the aid of some friends in the adjacent compartment, to convey her at once to Broadmoor Asylum.”

Chapter Eleven.

What Happened to us

For a moment I own that I was dismayed by this evil-looking woman’s line of attack. If there be one act of grave injustice in England easier to manage than another it is this: to trump up some false charge of lunacy against a sane but unconscious person. If, in addition, you can assert that the alleged maniac is one fleeing from justice, or, worse still, consigned to some living tomb of convicted criminals like Broadmoor, you are pretty sure to get public sympathy and support on your side, for the vast majority of persons fear the insane with a wild, unreasoning kind of panic, and are only too glad to interpose the burly forms of keepers and doctors between themselves and the objects they dread.

Doubtless this wretched creature knew this, for her tones were those of an absolute mistress of herself and of that most perplexing situation. Her attitude, too, suggested a consciousness of triumph, for she just looked at Camille Velasquon with a look of gravity and warning that she must be careful if she wished to have any peace or kindness hereafter, whereas for me she had nothing but hot scorn or an icy contempt.

“Did you say you had other keepers with you?” I queried at length, more anxious to gain time before I showed my real hand than to elicit information.

“Yes; I did. There are two assistant warders. I am the principal.”

“Women, I suppose?”

“Both women!”

“Both women! Where do they come from?”

“From Broadmoor, like myself.” And she turned her head in the direction of the carriage window, as though she were tired of the conversation and desired me for the rest of the time to mind my own business.

Camille Velasquon now plucked me nervously by the arm. “This woman’s story is a tissue of lies,” she whispered. “I am no criminal and no lunatic. Why, I never set foot in England till I got off the ship on to Southampton Dock with you a few minutes ago!”

“Of course you didn’t,” I replied in a low tone, which, luckily, the rattle of the wheels prevented that grim-looking figure in the corner making the true sense. “Don’t you see that this is the plot Don José Casteno warned you against? Indeed, this is why I came down to meet you, to protect you. The trouble is, I don’t know who has put her up to this crowning piece of impudence. If it is just some obscure enemy of Casteno or of the Order of St. Bruno it’s all right, I’ll rescue you; but if it has some diplomatic importance, and behind this creature stands some great personage who is playing some game of European importance, it won’t be so easy as it might seem. Money may have been spent like water, and, at a pinch, they may prove to be really warders sent from Broadmoor with false instructions about you, and a false scent.”

“But you will save me, won’t you?” pleaded the girl, her eyes lustrous with tears. “Don’t leave me near that dreadful creature. We women can read women much more rapidly than men can, even the cleverest; and I am sure she has never occupied any official position at an asylum – she looks more like a murderess herself!”

“Well, I will certainly do my best,” I replied soothingly, turning again and facing Miss Velasquon. England is a queer place, and it is very easy to get a crowd together and to weep to them and to stuff them with a lot of lies. Many wicked people get the better of the innocent by cheap and foolish tricks like those.

I stood up and piloted myself to a position opposite to the stranger. “As you can see,” I began quietly but firmly, moving my head in the direction of my companion, “Miss Velasquon and I are together. Your information has distressed me very much. I was under the impression that my friend was quite a different personage to the one you make out. All the same, I don’t want to do anything that might seem to you unnecessarily hostile. You say you have two other warders with you. Do you mind, now that the train is stopping, inviting them to come into this carriage?”

For the first time the woman’s eyes fell. She could not divine what I was up to. Somehow she felt herself being pushed into a position, but she could not foresee where it would terminate.

“I don’t see the need,” she blurted out at length.

“But the authorities at Broadmoor did. That is why they sent them with you, you know. Believe me, you will incur a very grave responsibility if you don’t let them do their duty now that I have pointed out how extremely important it is that they should. Suppose Miss Velasquon grew dangerous, for instance, and sprang out of the carriage window on to the metals before you could lift a hand to stop her, what would the railway people say, the asylum authorities, the police, the coroner? Why, I should hurry forward to give evidence against you, madam, and you would be convicted of nothing less than manslaughter by neglect.” And to add irritation to my words I broke into a low mocking laugh, while poor Camille Velasquon, who knew I was up to some trick, but couldn’t see what it was, gave way to a fit of tears.

“Yours is a pretty picture,” the woman snapped, and now she looked more evil than ever, “but it’s too melodramatic for my taste. Just get out of this carriage yourself, then I can manage the patient all right. If anything happens it will be your fault, not mine.”

“I am not so sure about that,” I retorted blithely. “But am I to understand you decline my suggestion? If so, I can only say you have told me an untruth for some purpose of your own, which it will be my duty to ferret out. I can tell you openly that you have no warders with you.”

“I have.”

“Produce them.”

“I can.”

“Produce them,” I replied, and I made a movement as though I would signal to some porters who were standing near and would call upon them to judge between me and herself.

The ruse succeeded. With a muttered curse the woman placed a small silver whistle to her lips and blew thereon a curious signal, rather low, but very penetrating and distinctive. The next moment she was answered. Two women in the uniform of hospital nurses appeared suddenly at the window, and, obeying a sign from their superior, they sprang into the carriage and took seats, one on one side of, and the other opposite to, Camille Velasquon, who, now fearing that I had muddled everything, began to cry in sober earnest.

Undaunted, I held on to the course I had marked out for myself when I started. Turning to the woman, as the train once again steamed off, I said with ironical politeness: “I must really apologise for the scepticism with which I treated you. I see, now, that you have two assistants from Broadmoor, but why don’t they wear Broadmoor uniforms?”

“They do,” she cried, and then she stopped and bit her lip. All at once she realised she had fallen into the pit I had dug so carelessly in front of her.

“Oh no, indeed, they do not,” I answered sweetly. “The uniforms which these women have on are only worn by nurses at Guy’s Hospital. The fact is, I have been often to Broadmoor myself, and I know the nurses there wear a totally different garb.” And I shot a glance out of the corner of my eyes at the pseudo-nurses themselves. One had flushed crimson, the other had gone deathly white, and was playing nervously with her pocket-handkerchief. They were impostors, I am certain.