to me, 'Applebee, that head on your shoulders don't belong to you,' I'd half believe him, I would indeed, sir. What with shadders that wouldn't give you a civil answer when you spoke to 'em, and that you could walk right through, and taking hold of flesh and blood that slipped through your fingers like a ghost, to say nothing of the fog, which is a pretty large order-well, if all that ain't enough to worry a night policeman, I'd like to know what is."
CHAPTER XIII
A LIGHT IN THE HOUSE OF DR. PYE
"Worry enough, in all conscience," said Dick, "and you've got a level head, too, if any member of the force has. You're the last man I should have expected to be scared by shadows."
"Not what you might call scared," replied Constable Applebee, unwilling to admit as much to a layman; "put out, sir, put out-that's the right word. A man may be put out in so many ways. His wife may put him out-and she often does-an underdone chop may put him out-a fractious child may put him out-likewise buttons. It's what we're born to."
"Well, say put out," said Dick with a hearty laugh. "And by shadows, too, of all things in the world! Still, one might be excused on such a night as this. The mist floats, shadows rise, and there you are. All sorts of fancies crept into my head as I walked along, and if I'd been employed on duty as monotonous as yours I have no doubt I should have heard sounds and seen shapes that have no existence."
"You talk like a book, sir."
"What was the nature of the flesh and blood that slipped through your fingers like a ghost, Applebee?"
"Human nature, sir. I'll take my oath it was a woman. I had her by the arm, and presto! she was gone!"
"A woman," said Dick, thinking of Mrs. Death. "Did she have a child with her, a poor little mite with a churchyard cough?"
"I don't call to mind a child. It was in Catchpole Square it happened. I shall report it."
"Of course you will," said Dick, convinced that it was Mrs. Death, but wondering why she should have been so anxious to escape. "Talking of Catchpole Square, have you seen anything this last day or two of Mr. Samuel Boyd?"
"Haven't set eyes on him for a week past. To make sure, now-is it a week? No, it was Friday night that I saw him last. I can fix the time because a carriage pulled up at Deadman's Court, and a lady got out. She went through the court, followed by the footman."
"Did she stop long, do you know?"
"Couldn't have stopped very long. I hung about a bit, and when I come round again the carriage was driving away. All sorts of people deal with Samuel Boyd, poor and rich, high and low. That house of his could tell tales."
"So could most houses, Applebee."
"True enough, sir. There's no city in the world so full of mystery as London. We're a strange lot, sir. I read in a book once that every house contains a skeleton. The human mind, sir," said Constable Applebee, philosophically, "the human mind is a box, and no one but the man who owns that mind knows what is shut up in it."
It was a pregnant opening for discussion, but Dick did not pursue it. He returned to the subject that was engrossing his thoughts.
"Samuel Boyd kept a clerk, – "
"And I pity the poor devil," interjected the constable.
"So do I. The name of his last clerk is Abel Death. You've noticed him, I dare say."
"Oh, yes, I've noticed him. A weedy sort of chap-looks as it he had all the cares of the world on his shoulders. I didn't know his name, though. Abel Death! If it was mine, I'd change it."
"Have you seen him lately?"
"Let me think, now. It was Friday night when I saw him last. I noticed him particularly, because he staggered a bit, walked zig-zag like, as if he'd had a glass too much. That was what I thought at first, but I altered my opinion when I caught sight of his face. It wasn't so much like a man who'd been drinking, but like one who was fairly demented. Any special reason for asking about him, sir?"
"No special reason," replied Dick, not feeling himself justified in revealing what had passed in the police station, "You would call Mr. Death a respectable person, I suppose?"
"When there's nothing against a man," said Constable Applebee, "you're bound in common fairness to call him respectable. From the little I know of him I should say, poor, but respectable. If we come to that, there's plenty of poor devils in the same boat."
"Too many, Applebee. I can't help thinking of that woman you caught by the arm. It was a curious little adventure."
"It was, sir, and I don't know that I was ever more nonplussed. There's nothing curious in her being in Catchpole Square. She might have slipped in there to sleep the night out, not having money enough to pay for a bed. Pond and me happened to meet on the boundary of our beats, and we strolled into the Square. I could have swore that she was creeping along the wall; perhaps she was scared at the sight of us, and had a reason for not wanting to fall in the hands of the law."
"That will hardly hold water," said Dick. "She could have had no clearer a sight of you than you had of her. There have been too many bad deeds committed in dark places in the dead of the night, and seeing something moving that she couldn't account for, she was frightened and ran away. Did you call out to her?"
"I did. 'Now, then,' I cried, 'what are you up to?' Not a word did she answer. Then I caught hold of her; then she vanished. Which goes to prove," said Constable Applebee, contemplatively, "that she wasn't one of the regular ones. If she'd been a regular one she'd have cheeked us. Not being a regular one, what business did she have there? Anyway Catchpole Square ain't exactly the place I would choose for a night's lodging."
"Beggars can't be choosers," remarked Dick.
"Right you are, sir. They can't."
The conversation slackened, and the men walked slowly along Shore Street, the constable, like a zealous officer, trying the doors and looking up at the windows.
"The people inside," he said, "are better off than we are. They're snugly tucked up between the sheets, dreaming of pleasanter things than tramping a thick fog."
"There's somebody there," said Dick, pointing to a first floor window, where, through the mist, a light could be dimly seen, "who isn't between the sheets. See how the light shifts, like a will-o'-the-wisp."
"That's Dr. Pye's house, where the midnight oil is always burning. Yes, he's awake, the doctor; it's my belief he never sleeps. A clever gentleman, Dr. Pye, as chockful of science as an egg is of meat. Do you happen to be acquainted with him, sir?"
"No."
"A strange character, sir. The things they tell of him is beyond belief. I've heard say that he's discovered the secret of prolonging life, and of making an old man young."
"But you haven't heard that he has ever done it."
"No, or I might have asked him what his charge was for taking ten or twenty years off. Perhaps it's as well, though, to fight shy of that sort of thing. What they say of Dr. Pye may be true, or it mayn't, but you may make sure that he's always at his experiments. Pass his house at any hour of the night you like, and you may depend upon seeing that light burning in his window."
"Those are the men who make the wonderful discoveries we hear of from time to time. Think of what the world was and what it is. How did people
