I will
see if I cannot learn anything about that house through private
channels of information, and if I do light upon anything I will let you
know.”




VII
THE ENCOUNTER IN SOHO


Three weeks later Austin received a note from Villiers, asking him to
call either that afternoon or the next. He chose the nearer date, and
found Villiers sitting as usual by the window, apparently lost in
meditation on the drowsy traffic of the street. There was a bamboo
table by his side, a fantastic thing, enriched with gilding and queer
painted scenes, and on it lay a little pile of papers arranged and
docketed as neatly as anything in Mr. Clarke’s office. “Well, Villiers, have you made any discoveries in the last three
weeks?”

“I think so; I have here one or two memoranda which struck me as
singular, and there is a statement to which I shall call your
attention.”

“And these documents relate to Mrs. Beaumont? It was really Crashaw
whom you saw that night standing on the doorstep of the house in Ashley
Street?”

“As to that matter my belief remains unchanged, but neither my
inquiries nor their results have any special relation to Crashaw. But
my investigations have had a strange issue. I have found out who Mrs.
Beaumont is!”

“Who is she? In what way do you mean?”

“I mean that you and I know her better under another name.”

“What name is that?”

“Herbert.”

“Herbert!” Austin repeated the word, dazed with astonishment. “Yes, Mrs. Herbert of Paul Street, Helen Vaughan of earlier adventures
unknown to me. You had reason to recognize the expression of her face;
when you go home look at the face in Meyrick’s book of horrors, and you
will know the sources of your recollection.”

“And you have proof of this?”

“Yes, the best of proof; I have seen Mrs. Beaumont, or shall we say
Mrs. Herbert?”

“Where did you see her?”

“Hardly in a place where you would expect to see a lady who lives in
Ashley Street, Piccadilly. I saw her entering a house in one of the
meanest and most disreputable streets in Soho. In fact, I had made an
appointment, though not with her, and she was precise to both time and
place.”

“All this seems very wonderful, but I cannot call it incredible. You
must remember, Villiers, that I have seen this woman, in the ordinary
adventure of London society, talking and laughing, and sipping her
coffee in a commonplace drawing-room with commonplace people. But you
know what you are saying.”

“I do; I have not allowed myself to be led by surmises or fancies. It
was with no thought of finding Helen Vaughan that I searched for Mrs.
Beaumont in the dark waters of the life of London, but such has been
the issue.”

“You must have been in strange places, Villiers.”

“Yes, I have been in very strange places. It would have been useless,
you know, to go to Ashley Street, and ask Mrs. Beaumont to give me a
short sketch of her previous history. No; assuming, as I had to assume,
that her record was not of the cleanest, it would be pretty certain
that at some previous time she must have moved in circles not quite so
refined as her present ones. If you see mud at the top of a stream, you
may be sure that it was once at the bottom. I went to the bottom. I
have always been fond of diving into Queer Street for my amusement, and
I found my knowledge of that locality and its inhabitants very useful. It is, perhaps, needless to say that my friends had never heard the
name of Beaumont, and as I had never seen the lady, and was quite
unable to describe her, I had to set to work in an indirect way. The
people there know me; I have been able to do some of them a service now
and again, so they made no difficulty about giving their information;
they were aware I had no communication direct or indirect with Scotland
Yard. I had to cast out a good many lines, though, before I got what I
wanted, and when I landed the fish I did not for a moment suppose it
was my fish. But I listened to what I was told out of a constitutional
liking for useless information, and I found myself in possession of a
very curious story, though, as I imagined, not the story I was looking
for. It was to this effect. Some five or six years ago, a woman named
Raymond suddenly made her appearance in the neighbourhood to which I am
referring. She was described to me as being quite young, probably not
more than seventeen or eighteen, very handsome, and looking as if she
came from the country. I should be wrong in saying that she found her
level in going to this particular quarter, or associating with these
people, for from what I was told, I should think the worst den in
London far too good for her. The person from whom I got my information,
as you may suppose, no great Puritan, shuddered and grew sick in
telling me of the nameless infamies which were laid to her charge. After living there for a year, or perhaps a little more, she
disappeared as suddenly as she came, and they saw nothing of her till
about the time of the Paul Street case. At first she came to her old
haunts only occasionally, then more frequently, and finally took up her
abode there as before, and remained for six or eight months. It’s of no
use my going into details as to the life that woman led; if you want
particulars you can look at Meyrick’s legacy. Those designs were not
drawn from his imagination. She again disappeared, and the people of
the place saw nothing of her till a few months ago. My informant told
me that she had taken some rooms in a house which he pointed out, and
these rooms she was in the habit of visiting two or three times a week
and always at ten in the morning. I was led to expect that one of these
visits would be paid on a certain day about a week ago, and I
accordingly managed to be on the look-out in company with my cicerone
at a quarter to ten, and the hour and the lady came with equal
punctuality. My friend and I were standing under an archway, a little
way back from the street, but she saw us, and gave me a glance that I
shall be long in forgetting. That look was quite enough for me; I knew
Miss Raymond to be Mrs. Herbert; as for Mrs. Beaumont she had quite
gone out of my head. She went into the house, and I watched it till
four o’clock, when she came out, and then I followed her. It was a long
chase, and I had to be very careful to keep a long way in the
background, and yet not lose sight of the woman. She took me down to
the Strand, and then to Westminster, and then up St. James’s Street,
and along Piccadilly. I felt queerish when I saw her turn up Ashley
Street; the thought that Mrs. Herbert was Mrs. Beaumont came into my
mind, but it seemed too impossible to be true. I waited at the corner,
keeping my eye on her all the time, and I took particular care to note
the house at which she stopped. It was the house with the gay curtains,
the home of flowers, the house out of which Crashaw came the night he
hanged himself in his garden.