cast nearer our own time, and found a ribald work belonging to about the date of the American War, which purported to be a countryman’s guide to the amusements of town. There was all sorts of information about ‘Cider Cellars’ and ‘Groves of Harmony,’ which must have been pretty low pubs, and places in the suburbs for cock-fighting and dog-fighting. I turned up the index, and there to my joy I saw the word ‘Eden.’
I read the passage aloud, and I believe my hands were shaking. The place was, as I hoped, north of Oxford Street in what we now call Marylebone. ‘The Fields of Eden,’ said the book, ‘were opened by Mr Askew as a summer resort for the gentlemen and sportsmen of the capital. There of a fine afternoon may be seen Lord A—; and the Duke of B—; roving among the shady, if miniature, groves, not unaccompanied by the fair nymphs of the garden, while from adjacent arbours comes the cheerful tinkle of glasses and the merry clatter of dice, and the harmonious strains of Signora F—‘s Italian choir.’ There was a good deal more of it, but I stopped reading. There was a plan of London in the book, and from it I was able to plot out the boundaries of that doubtful paradise.
Then I got a modern map, and fixed the location on it. The place had been quite small, only a few acres, and today it was covered by the block defined by Wellesley Street, Apwith Lane, Little Fardell Street, and the mews behind Royston Square. I wrote this down in my note-book and took my leave.
‘You look pleased, Dick. Have you found what you want? Curious that I never heard the name, but it seems to have belonged to the dullest part of London at the dullest period of its history.’ Lord Artinswell, I could see, was a little nettled, for your antiquary hates to be caught out in his own subject.
I spent the rest of the afternoon making a very thorough examination of a not very interesting neighbourhood. What I wanted was a curiosity shop, and at first I thought I was going to fail. Apwith Lane was a kind of slum, with no shops but a disreputable foreign chemist’s and a small dirty confectioner’s, round the door of which dirty little children played. The inhabitants seemed to be chiefly foreigners. The mews at the back—of Royston Square were of course useless; it was long since any dweller in that square had kept a carriage, and they seemed to be occupied chiefly with the motor vans of a steam laundry and the lorries of a coal merchant. Wellesley Street, at least the part of it in my area, was entirely occupied with the show-rooms of various American automobile companies. Little Fardell Street was a curious place. It had one odd building which may have been there when the Fields of Eden flourished, and which now seemed to be a furniture repository of a sort, with most of the windows shuttered. The other houses were perhaps forty years old, most of them the offices of small wholesale businesses, such as you find in back streets in the City. There was one big French baker’s shop at the corner, a picture-framer’s, a watch-maker’s, and a small and obviously decaying optician’s. I walked down the place twice, and my heart sank, for I could see nothing in the least resembling an antique-shop.
I patrolled the street once. more, and then I observed that the old dwelling, which looked like a furniture depository, was also some kind of shop. Through a dirty lower window I caught a glimpse of what seemed to be Persian rugs and the bland face of a soap-stone idol. The door had the air of never having been used, but I tried it and it opened, tinkling a bell far in the back premises. I found myself in a small dusty place, littered up like a lumber room with boxes and carpets and rugs and bric-a-brac. Most of the things were clearly antiques, though to my inexpert eye they didn’t look worth much. The Turcoman rugs, especially, were the kind of thing you can buy anywhere in the Levant by the dozen.
A dishevelled Jewess confronted me, wearing sham diamond earrings.
‘I’m interested in antiques,’ I said pleasantly, taking off my hat to her. ‘May I look round?’
‘We do not sell to private customers,’ she said. ‘Only to the trade.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. But may I look round? If I fancied something, I dare say I could get some dealer I know to offer for it.’
She made no answer, but fingered her earrings with her plump grubby hands.
I turned over some of the rugs and carpets, and my first impression was confirmed. They were mostly trash, and a lacquer cabinet I uncovered was a shameless fake.
‘I like that,’ I said, pointing to a piece of Persian embroidery. ‘Can’t you put a price on it for me?’
‘We only sell to the trade,’ she repeated, as if it were a litany. Her beady eyes, which never left my face, were entirely without expression.
‘I expect you have a lot of things upstairs,’ I said. ‘Do you think I might have a look at them? I’m only in London for the day, and I might see something I badly wanted. I quite understand that you are wholesale people, but I can arrange any purchase through a dealer. You see, I’m furnishing a country house.’
For the first time her face showed a certain life. She shook her head vigorously. ‘We have no more stock at present. We do not keep a large stock. Things come in and go out every day. We only sell to the trade.’ ‘Well, I’m sorry to have taken up your time. Good afternoon.’ As I left the shop, I felt that I had made an important discovery. The business was bogus. There was very little that any dealer would touch, and the profits from all the trade done would not keep the proprietor in Virginian cigarettes.
I paid another visit to the neighbourhood after dinner. The only sign of life was in the slums of Apwith Lane, where frowsy women were chattering on the kerb. Wellesley Street was shuttered and silent from end to end. So was Little Fardell Street. Not a soul was about in it, not a ray of light was seen at any window, in the midst of the din of London it made a little enclave like a graveyard. I stopped at the curiosity shop, and saw that the windows were heavily shuttered and that the flimsy old door was secured by a strong outer frame of iron which fitted into a groove at the edge of the pavement and carried a stout lock. The shutters on the ground-floor windows were substantial things, preposterously substantial for so worthless a show. As I looked at them I had a strong feeling that the house behind that palisade was not as dead as it looked, that somewhere inside it there was life, and that in the night things happened there which it concerned me tremendously to know.
Next morning I went to see Macgillivray.
‘Can you lend me a first-class burglar?’ I asked. ‘Only for one night. Some fellow who won’t ask any questions and will hold his tongue.’
‘I’ve given up being surprised when you’re about,’ he said. ‘No. We don’t keep tame burglars here, but I can find you a man who knows rather more about the art than any professional. Why?’
‘Simply because I want to get inside a certain house tonight, and I see no chance of doing it except by breaking my way in. I suppose you could so arrange it that the neighbouring police-men would not interfere. In fact I want them to help to keep the coast clear.’
I went into details with him, and showed him the lie of the land. He suggested trying the back of the house, but I had reconnoitered that side and seen that it was impossible, for the building seemed to join on with the houses in the street behind. In fact there was no back door. The whole architecture was extremely odd, and I had a notion that the entrance in Little Fardell Street might itself be a back door. I told Macgillivray that I wanted an expert Who could let me in by one of the ground-floor windows, and replace everything so that there should be no trace next morning. He rang a bell and asked for Mr Abel to be sent for. Mr Abel was summoned, and presently appeared, a small wizened man, like a country tradesman. Macgillivray explained what was required of him, and Mr Abel nodded. It was a job which offered no difficulties, he said, to an experienced man. He would suggest that he investigated the place immediately after closing time, and began work about ten o’clock. If I arrived at ten-thirty, he
