THE DARK-STREET MYSTERY.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 5024, 4 June 1889, Page 4

THE DARK-STREET MYSTERY.

LITERATURE

A DOCTOR’S STORY. CHAPTER IV. ‘ Noah has not a blessed halfpenny left,’ Mr Kench said. ‘He paid your money to his landlady this afternoon ; so we cannot draw upon his exchequer, and there’s no one in the company worth five shillings. So, if any Sam* aritan would look the matter up it would be a real downright act of Christian charity. He’d get all his money back from Nash’s girls in time —or from me. I’ll be security for them to any amount. But I should like money sent to Delia if she can’t come without, and I want to save this old pal from a workhouse funeral. It’s so damaging to the theatre, you see—people will talk about it; and it isn t fair to Noah—is it, old man, after all vour troubles ? ’

Mr Kench went to the bedside again, and drew down the sheet which covered the comedian’s forehead. It was a dramatic action, but there was pathos in it. * I am not a rich man

‘ Enough, sir ; enough. I put a hypothetical case—don c mind me in the least.’

‘ Not a rich man,M repeated, * but I will take this in hand, and to the best of my power, until we hear from Mr Nash’s daughters.’ Heaven bless you, sir ! Poor Nash spoke of yotl this afternoon as a right good sort—the only one of a good sort he had discovered in the town, he said ; and you were not a native, which accounts for it. We drank the health of Dr Lissamer an hour or two ago. It was Noah’s last toast, poor beggar! He was a wonderful judge of character, and a man with a most surprising memory. He had some knowledge of you through Hyacintha’s case, hadn’t heP’

‘ Yes, be had.’ ‘But 1 atn boring you/ be said, ‘instead of thanking you for all the trouble you are willing' to take upon yourself, and for an unfortunate member of my company. . I can but thank you again, sir. lam at your service in any details that you think I may be able to furnish. My address is the theatre —I sleep there, in fact—and if ever I am able to repay you for all your kindness, you may rely upon me that I will. Good night, sir.’ He extended his hand, bowed politely over the one I put in his, and then followed me downstairs into the street.

‘lt has left off raining,’ he said, looking up at the black sky, ‘ but the wind cuts like a knife. Good night, once more—and thank you. I walked home at a good pace. The streets were desolate. Mrs Higginson hurst into tears at the sight of me. Had she been having four of Scotch too ?

‘ I thought you were waylaid hy some of those nasty foreign sailors, or had taken the wrong turning and walked off the quay into the water, or been seized, or something. Higginson’s been round to the theyater, and it’s been shut up, he says, ever so long.’ ‘ I have been detained.’

And then I told her the news, at which she cried afresh, and preached to me a homily on the uncertainty of life.

I got rid of Mrs Higginson, and sat before my fire, thinking of the responsibility I had—a little imprudently — taken upon myself, and wondering if Mr Blench had considered me a fool for my officiousness. I had certainly gone a great deal out of my way to be of service to people I did not know ; I was going out of my way to spend my money ; I should feel the drain presently—l might he shortly as stone-broke as Mr Bleach. Why had I thrust myself forward in this uncalled-for manner? It was not that Mr Kench’s eloquence had carried all before it—he might have been in’earnest, or he might have been play-acting) it was that the comedian’s sudden exit from life had been a shock to me that I could not recover from, and which had aroused strange morbid sensibilities, and made of me a rash, impulsive, improvident man. In the morning I was still further convinced that I bad acted imprudently, but there was not the faintest wish to draw back from the promise I had made. People would probably laugh at me. Tracey would roar with laughter, and so would Fairfax, my medical representative, my deputy, at Newington; but at all events, I should have done some one a good turn. The wild, romantic, warm-hearted, unworldly and uncalculating sons of Thespis would not laugh at me, though —very likely they would understand me better than the men of my own set. They allow lor impulse and emotion. I would he content with their good estimate of me, and at all events the thing was done, and must be carried on to the end, I walked out before breakfast and despatched my telegram to Miss Nash, 99 Dark Street, S.E. It was a lengthy telegram, because I was anxious to be explicit, and to soften the shock to the daughters of the ather’s decease, as well as it was possible, when words were a halfpenny each. Thv, telegram cost me four and seven pence halfpenny.

Anri balf-an-hour alter breakfast a telegraph lad asked to see me, and said he had been sent by the Byeymouth postmaster for ‘further instructions.’ The address I bad given was altogether wrong.. No such street as Dark Street, I was officially informed, was known in any district of South London, or in any part of London proper —or even improper ! CHAPTER V. Herb was a new, if small, item of mystification not readily to be accounted for. Hera was one of the daughters of the.late Ni ah Nash*dating her letter calmly from a street that bad no separate; existence upon the map of London. What was the reason for it ? Was there a joke in if, or a double meaning in it ? Was there a motive for

keeping the real address of the writer for a while from the gentleman who had died with a fragment ol his daughter’s letter in his hand ? I sat over my breakfast-and tried to think it out. Failing in my effort to arrive at any clear elucidation of the problem, I gave it up, or rather set it aside, as a man might do a tiresome riddle which he has neither time nor inclination to solve just at present. Mr John Kench would solve it for me, or offer a clue, I had not the slightest doubt, until I was on my way to John Kench, when the doubts seemed to begin again, and to press upon me obtrusively with every step I made towards Quay Street and Breymouth Theatre. When I had discovered Mr Kench he did not throw any light upon the matter; he stood and scratched his head, and looked down at the uncarpeted floor of his manager’s room, to which I had found my way up a rickety ladder.

* No such place as Dark Street, you say! Well, I don’t quite make this little game out,’ he commented 5 ‘but we can find the girls easily enough. Oh yes.’ t ‘ By writing to their last address ? ‘Not that way. I don’t know their last address. Noah was not very communicative about his daughters,’ he went on ; ‘never let you know too much. A pleasant old boy, but secretive, and as proud as Lucifer. Had his girls been in Queer Street instead of Dark Street, Noah would have never let any one know where they were. And ’

‘And how do you purpose finding these girls, then ? ’ I interrupted, as Mr Keuch’s garrulity began to pall ujon me. ‘ By telegraphing to the manager of the Royal Eastern Theatre —where I know Delia was playing a fortnight ago—and asking him to communicate with her as to the catastrophe that has occurred here.’

‘ Yes. That will do—surely,’ I said. But I said it a little doubtfully. Miss Delia Nash might have left the theatre, or had had notice to quit, and gone her way without troubling any one at the Royal Eastern with her new address.

(To he Continued .)