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Page 39
One evening as I sat at work in my chambers, with the throb of busy
Fleet Street and its thousand familiar sounds floating in to me
through the open windows, my phone bell rang.
Even as I turned to take up the receiver a foreboding possessed me
that my trusteeship was no longer to be a sinecure. It was
Bristol who had rung me up, and upon very strange business.
"A development at last!" he said; "but at present I don't know what
to make of it. Can you come down now?"
"Where are you speaking from?"
"From the Waterloo Road--a delightful neighbourhood. I shall be
glad if you can meet me at the entrance to Wyatt's Buildings in
half an hour."
"What is it? Have you found Dexter?"
"No, unfortunately. But it's murder!"
I knew as I hung up the receiver that my brief period of peace was
ended; that the lists of assassination were reopened. I hurried
out through the court into Fleet Street, thinking of the key of the
now empty case at the Museum which reposed at my bankers, thinking
of the devils who pursued the slipper, thinking of the hundred and
one things, strange and terrible, which went to make up the history
of that gruesome relic.
Wyatt's Buildings, Waterloo Road, are a gloomy and forbidding block
of dwellings which seem to frown sullenly upon the high road, from
which they are divided by a dark and dirty courtyard. Passing an
iron gateway, you enter, by way of an arch, into this sinister place
of uncleanness. Male residents in their shirt sleeves lounge
against the several entrances. Bedraggled women nurse dirty infants
and sit in groups upon the stone steps, rendering them almost
impassable. But to-night a thing had happened in Wyatt's Buildings
which had awakened in the inhabitants, hardened to sordid crime, a
sort of torpid interest.
Faces peered from most of the windows which commanded a view of the
courtyard, looking like pallid blotches against the darkness; but
a number of police confined the loungers within their several
doorways, so that the yard itself was comparatively clear.
I had had some difficulty in forcing a way through the crowd which
thronged the entrance, but finally I found myself standing beside
Inspector Bristol and looking down upon that which had brought us
both to Wyatt's Buildings.
There was no moon that night, and only the light of the lamp in the
archway, with some faint glimmers from the stairways surrounding the
court, reached the dirty paving. Bristol directed the light of a
pocket-lamp upon the hunched-up figure which lay in the dust, and I
saw it to be that of a dwarfish creature, yellow skinned and wearing
only a dark loin cloth. He had a malformed and disproportionate
head, a head that had been too large even for a big man. I knew
after first glance that this was one of the horrible dwarfs employed
by the Hashishin in their murderous business. It might even be the
one who had killed Deeping; but this was impossible to determine
by reason of the fact that the hideous, swollen head, together with
the features, was completely crushed. I shall not describe the
creature's appearance in further detail.
Having given me an opportunity of examine the dead dwarf, Bristol
returned the electric lamp to his pocket and stood looking at me in
the semi-gloom. A constable stood on duty quite near to us, and
others guarded the archway and the doors to the dwellings. The
murmur of subdued voices echoed hollowly in the wells of the
staircases, and a constant excited murmur proceeded from the crowd
at the entrance. No pressmen had yet been admitted, though numbers
of them were at the gates.
"It happened less than an hour ago," said Bristol. "The place was
much as you see it now, and from what I can gather there came the
sound of a shot and several people saw the dwarf fall through the
air and drop where he lies!"
The light was insufficient to show the expression upon the speaker's
face, but his voice told of a great wonder.
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