by Lewis Hockley [Percy Longhurst].
Originally published in The Magnet Library (The Amalgamated Press, Ltd.) vol.1 #9 (11 Apr 1908).
What Lomax Did (continued).
So after breakfast Bob Lomax turned his attention to Mr. Gillard. Steve Gillard was, as were most of the able-bodied male population of Leigh, a fisherman—a shrimper. He was sufficiently popular, also, for the boots at the hotel, though not one of his bosom pals, was able to inform Lomax almost to an inch where he might be found.
"Yew go down, sir," said this worthy, in answer to Lomax's question—"yew go down to the Heel an' Flowerpot, an' look hout for a biggish young chap wi' a pock-marked face an' a moustache what's just a beginning to show itself, who's leaning against the houtside wall, wi' a half-gallon pot o' beer on the winder-sill 'longside o' him, an' yew'll find old Steve Gillard. If he ain't there I'll blooming well heat my 'at. Five minutes to eleven, arter the night's take o' s'rimps has bin got rid of, does Steve go an' hold op the wall o' the Heel an' Flowerpot, an' he ain't to be shifted not if his 'ouse were a burning an' his step-mother what lives with him was a being burned to a cinder."
With such illuminating instructions to guide him, Lomax had little difficulty in locating the man he sought. The Eel and Flowerpot was a low-caved, diamond-windowed, narrow-doorwayed little beerhouse situated on the tongue of land jutting into the sea which forms the rearward portion of Leigh village, and serves as the loafing ground for all Leigh fishermen when they have no work to take them afloat. It is a strip of land that is invariably muddy, is soaked with the smell of fish, tarred ropes, and bilge-water, and is a place for any person owning a sensitive stomach to avoid.
Robert Lomax did not possess an ultra-sensitive stomach, but, all the same, he did wish Mr. Gillard had been partial to some less odoriferous locality for his forenoon musings.
Stephen himself he had no difficulty whatever in finding, though there were almost a dozen of the Leigh shrimp-catchers lounging against the outside wall of the beerhouse—holding it up, as the boots had said. All had pipe between their lips, all had their hands in their pockets, all were wearing guernseys, thick boots, and salt water-stained blue cloth trousers; some were middle-aged, but others were young; many were bearded, several clean shaven, or with hirsute adornments in their infancy; but only one was pock-marked and by this sign Lomax recognised the man whom he sought.
Very brink and businesslike he walked along the front of the Eel and Flowerpot, the object of mild curiosity to thoee who were engaged in keeping the beerhouse walls from tumbling down, and he pulled up opposite the young man whose face bore the marks of the smallpox. The boots had been correct; the young fisherman was not far from the beerhouse window, and on the sill stood a large pewter-pot.
"Mr. Stephen Gillard, I believe?" the young detective said, in a questioning voice.
The fisherman took his pipe slowly from his mouth, brought his eyes away from tho sea to somewhere near Lomax's face—he was crosseyed, so it was not easy to say offhand where he was looking very precisely—and stared at him wonderingly.
He was a tallish young fellow, somewhere between twenty-five and thirty years of age, the colour of mahogany, with sloping shoulders, deep chest, thick, powerful limbs, and enormous hands, a very fine specimen of England's seafaring manhood; not an Apollo in shape or a beauty in feature, but a stout, lusty chap, such as may be seen any day in the fishing villages around the English coast.
"Eh?" he grunted.
"You are Mr. Stephen Gillard, I believe," Lomax repeated.
The young man put his pipe back in his mouth.
"Yes, that's me," he answered. His companions along the wall began to evince a greater interest.
"Pleased to meet you," Lomax observed cheerfully.
"Who are yew! Don't know yew," Steve returned, with a directness some persons might have found disconcerting.
"I should be glad to have a little chat with you," Lomax continued pleasantly, "I think you're the man I am wanting to see."
"What fort?" Mr. Gillerd's brown eyes filled with suspicion; he looked or seemed to be looking at Lomax's right ear.
"What for? Well, I believe that you handle a good many postcards—picture postcards; that you write and send away a good many, I believe."
At the mention of picture postcards Mr. Gillard's face slowly reddened: he scowled, for a chuckle arose from two or three of his fellow loungers. He said nothing, and one of the other young men burst into a loud laugh, whereat Steve Gillard's face became much more highly coloured.
"Chuck it!" he observed curtly.
"Isn't that so?" Lomax queried.
"What's that to do wi' you, mister?" was the answer.
"Well," said Lomax, in a quiet, businesslike manner, "Not a great deal, certainly, only I thought it just possible that you—"
He was interrupted by Mr. Gillard, who suddenly detached himself from the wall, made a forward movement, and placed one great hand on Robert's shoulder.
"'Ere," said the fisherman hoarsely, "be yew come from that blighted Jew, that Sheeny cove what comes snufflin' round 'ere sellin' pictur' postcards? Are yew one of 'is pals? 'Cos if so you're just the man I want, an' I'm goin' to give yew a boost into th' sea, like as I said I'd do if I ever cotched yew round 'ere eg'in. Yew're sellin' picture postcards, too, are yew?"
The young man's voice was decidedly threatening, the grip of his fingers anything but pleasant. He seemed to feel that he had a grievance against Mr. Solly Abrams and all of his kind, to which he suspected Lomax to belong.
Lomax twisted himself free.
"I'm not trying to sell you picture postcards, I'm not one of Mr. Abram's friends, end you're not going to pitch me into the sea. Moreover, you couldn't if you were to try."
This lest was rather a dangerous remark to have made. Lomax by no means meant it as a challenge, but as such the young fisherman chose to regard it.
"Can't I?" be sant, and his other hand took possession of Lomax's coat collar. "I'll just show yew that I can."
Now this was anything but what Lomax was looking for. Mr. Gillard evidently had a grievance against tho Jewish pedlar of postcards, and having got it into his thick head Lomax was in some way connected with him, it was in his—Gillard's—mind to "take it out of him."
The other fishermen left their positions, greatly enlivened at the prospect of a fight, which seemed imminent. For Mr. Gillard, who was evidently one of those who don't let their threats became cold before proceeding to execute them, began to push Lomax backwards, with the intention of carrying hie promise into effect.
"I'll duck yew!" he said.
Now Lomax, although he did not forget that he was a detective, also remembered that he took such treatment as this from no man lying down; he didn't want to get drawn into any unseemly brawling—it would be prejudicial to his business at Leigh—but, at the same time, he wasn't going to submit to be handled thus by any man. Also, be it remembered, he was a Yorkshireman, and the men of the broad-acred shire are the very last who are liable to submit to intimidation, or be unwilling to hold up their own end.
Mr. Gillard shoved Lomax backward a few paces—he was the taller as well as the bigger and heavier man—when the latter suddenly lifted his right leg, swung it, grabbing and jerking the fisherman's left arm at the same time, and Stove Gillard measured his length on the ground.
There was a gasp of surprise from the onlookers; no one had rightly seen what had happened, and the effect rather took their breath away. What had been done was, however, very simple. Lomax had brought into play a wrestling chip, which the men of the North country know well—known as the outside stroke—with a swinging stroke given with the edge of his right foot at the ankle of the fisherman's advanced left leg, and a simultaneous jerk to the same side, he had thrown Mr. Gillard fairly off his Balance. And Steve was as ignorant as the rest of the fishermen how he had been brought to the ground.
The fall, being totally unexpected, was a heavy one, but the powerful young fisherman was up in a jiffy. Spitting out his broken pipe-stem, he made a fierce rush at the detective, his arms extended.
But once again he was foiled badly. As he rushed in Lomax ducked under his extended hands, caught him round one thigh with both arms, half lifted him from the ground, and inserting his own right heel on the inside behind Gillard's standing leg, threw the young fisherman a fair back fall. He came down heavily, and for a few seconds lay still, most of the wind being driven from his body. The other men stared at Lomax with open eyes and mouths agape.
Lomax stepped forward and bent over the fallen man.
"Now, see here," he said, "don't be a fool. I've got no reason for quarrelling with you, and I don't want to, but I wasn't going to let you duck me. I didn't mean to hurt you, and I hope I haven't; but, all the same, I had to throw you, and I'll do it again if it's necessary, but I hope it won't be. Come, get up and be sensible, and we'll have our talk."
He grasped Gillard's hand an he spoke, and the fisherman scrambled to his feet, somewhat angry, but a great deal more bewildered.
"How did yew do it?" he faltered.
Lomax laughed.
"Never mind that" be said: "I'll show you another time. Now, I've nothing whatever to do with Mr. Abrams, I'm not going to try to sell you cards, but I want you to tell me if that belongs to you."
As Lomax spoke he drew out of his pocket a picture postcard, the very last one that Mrs. Brewer had received, and held it towards Gillard.
The latter, slow witted, a little bewildered by his double fall, and Lomax's easy assurance of being master of the situation, took the card gingerly, and looked at it, Lomax's eyes narrowly watching his face the while.
"Did you find this, mister?" the fisherman asked.
"Never mind that. Is it yours? Did you write it?"
"No, mister; never saw it before." And the man spoke as one who is telling the truth. "And now tell me, will yew--"
But at this precise moment a telegraph boy came hurrying towards the group, and coming to Lomax, held out one of the familiar orange-coloured envelopes.
"Is this for you, sir?" the lad asked. "I took it to the hotel, and they told me you were down here. I've been all over the place, sir, looking for you. Came a long while ago."
"Robert Lomax, Leigh-on-Sea," was the address given on the cover, and it spoke well for the telegraphic clerk's acuteness that it had ever reached the proper person.
Tearing open the envelope, Lomax took out the pink form.
"Come back at once," the wire read. It was unsigned, and had been handed in at Borough High Street post office.
Dennis Has an Inspiration.
We left Frank Dennis on his way to the neighbourhood where Mrs. Brewer lived, to begin his work of obtaining information concerning that lady. He had accepted Bob Lomax'e theory that sheer hard work was all that was required towards the elucidation of any mystery, and he was not looking for the intervention of any of those fortuitous circumstances which, in fiction, form part of the detective hero's stock-in-trade. He meant to begin by interviewing their client's lady friend, Mrs. Biddlecombe. As he walked along—Grip on the lead trotting behind him—he considered the various means whereby he might form that lady's acquaintance. He might be a book agent, a canvasser endeavouring to push the sale of some novelty, a sewing machine agent, or even a representative of a life assurance company. He weighed the pros and cons of the value of each artifice, and found great difficulty in deciding which was the best character to assume.
While pondering over the matter, a brilliant idea came into his mind annihilating all other suggestions, one of those ideas—he could not avoid the thought—such as invariably came to the rescue of his fictional heroes when they found themselves in a particularly tight corner with no obvious means of escape. He resolved to act on it forthwith, and set off towards the street where Mrs. Brewer resided, at a brisk and confident pace.
It was not difficult to find, and presently he found himself, his heart beating fast with excitement, outside the door of Mrs. Biddlecombe's domicile. He knocked, and a middle-aged womaa, grey-haired, and of a most lugubrious cast of countenance, opened the door about six inches and put her face to the opening. She looked at the visitor as if she imagined the worst.
"Good-afternoon, madam!" Dennis said pleasantly, "Er—I—can you—I am—"
Now that the moment had come the idea didn't seem so easy to put into execution. The woman's stare disconcerted him, She looked at him and said nothing.
"Mrs. Brewer, I presume?" went on Dennis.
"No, I ain't!"
"But," Dennis said undecidedly, "I thought—I was under tho impression—"
"I'm Mrs. Biddlecombe."
"Oh!"
Dennis looked disappointed. He was beginning to recover himself; his nervousness was wearing off, and the brilliant idea was beginning to get a chance.
"Mrs. Brewer don't live here," volunteered the lady.
"Made a mistake, I suppose," Dennis continued briskly. "And yet--surely it was somewhere about here that I was told she lived. Perhaps, madam, you may be able to help me. Do you know if the lady I am desirous of seeing lives about here?"
"I do know a Mrs. Brewer," was the non-committal reply.
"Ah! Perhaps, then, that is she. May I ask where the lady lives?"
"Nex' door."
"Oh, so close as that! Then I'm not very far out. Sorry to have troubled you, Mrs.--er--Mrs. Biddlecombe. Thanks very much for the information. I'll just knock. I'm particularly anxious to see her--particularly. Thank you again. I--"
Dennis was about to turn away, when apparently recollecting himself, he again faced round to the door.