Chapter I.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5022, 7 June 1884, Page 3

Chapter I.

Had I been my own master at that time and able to do as I liked in the affair the probability is that I should never have taken up my residence in Beryl Mansions. As matters, were, however, I had no choice. My uncle Tobias was at the trouble of engaging the rooms for me, as he was also at the expense of furnishing them. After that, of course, nothing could be said, more especially as it was owing to his influence that I had obtained the situation to which I had just been appointed in' ! a wellknown London bank. But, indeed, I found my rooms in Beryl Mansions far more tolerable than at one time I had thought possible. In the first place they were central, in the second they were quiet, and in the third place I could go in and out as I pleased without being interfered with by any one. Beryl Mansions were situated in a narrow street which formed an artery between two other streets running from the Strand to the river, which, at the time I write, was still without its Embankment. The Mansions formed a cul-de-sac, and reached from the street through a covered gateway, which bore on its front, deeply cut in the stonework, the date 1717. The houses were substantial, well built, and dated back to about the same period as the gateway. There was an air of decayed gentility about them, as though they had seen better days. They were let out in floors to different occupants, I, Edward Dhnsdalc, being the tenant of two rooms on the first floor of No. 3— the third house on the left as you entered from the street. The custodian, rent collector, and general factotum for all matters relating to the Mansions was a round, rosy, elderly man, named Daniel Ivy. It was from him that before long I came to know nearly all he could tell me about my neighbours and fellow-lodgers. In every case the ground floors of the houses were rented as offices of one kind or other, and were consequently occupied during the daytime j Ivy and his wife tenanted two or three small rooms in the gateway itself. The other occupants of the Mansions, tho?e who slept there and made their homes there, consisted of men of various ages and different occupations, as was to be expected amongst a handful of individuals brought together as neighbours by sheer accident in the heart of a great city. "You are our youngest lodger, Mr Dimsdale," said Ivy to me one day, " and we have only one lady living in the Mansions, ar.d she's a foreigner." " And who is she ?" "Her name's Ma'amsclle Latour, Hud she lives with her father on the first floor of No. 2—, the house next yours, sit. A sallow faced young lady, not very handsome, but very ladylike and civil." " And Mademoiselle Latour's father ?" I said, questioningly. " What is he, you moan, sir ? That's just more than I can make out," responded Ivy. "He puzzles me, and it isn't often I'm puzzled about any of my lodgers. And between you and me, sir, 1 can't say I like Monsieur Latour over much; what's moi'e, my missis don't like him. Ho is too sly, sir, coming in and going out at all hours of the day and night, sometimes dressed like a rcg'lar lord, at other times like a common working man, in a suit of clothes I wouldn't give half a sovereign for. Curious, sir, I take it." " Very curious, indeed, Ivy. I presume that Monsieur Latour's daughter dor b not; keep these strange hours ?" " Wet or line, every day but Sunday, Ma'amselle loaves the house nthalf-pnst ten to the minute, and every evening she gets back about six. Me ami my missis have put it down that ehc goes out as governess — teaching music or French, maybe. Ma'umselle's right enough, sir, and, ns I said before, she's remarkably civil." Ivy knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and then proceeded to re'ill it. "There's Mr LycJfor.il, now," he re* sumed. "He has tie rooms on the floor

above Monsieur and his daughter, and he is what I call a real nice gentleman. You'll know him at once when you see .him, sir. He's getting on for sixty. Tall and thin, has white hair and whiskers, and dresses a little old fashioned, but as neat as a new pin." "In some bank or office in the city, probably ? " "'No, air, as far as I can make out Mr Lydford is his own master, and hasn't anything particular to occupy his time with. He is a very bookish man. There are heaps of booka in his rooms and he's always bringing fre3h ones home. I think you would like to know Mr Lydford, air/' added Daniel, with a sly look at me. " Probably. lam a lover of books myself in a small way." " I don't mean that, sir ; but you might like to know him because o: his pretty niece, who comes to see him every two or three months. I shouldn't be a bit surprised, sir, if you were to fall head over ears in love the first time you set eyes on her." " But I should be very much surprised myself, Daniel," I answered drily. " Why don't you find me as pleasant a neighbour as Mr Lydford for the empty rooms on the floor above mine. It is lonely of a night with no one in the old house but myself." Ivy puffed at his pipe in silence. "That's another queer thing/' he said at last. "As you say, sir, the rooms over yours are empty ; for all that they are not to let." " Not to let ! How's that ?" " Well, sir, they had been standing empty for some time, when one day about fifteen months since, a gentleman came and looked at them and took them on the spot. The name he gave was Bevan, his references were a firm of lawyers in Bedford row, and he paid me a quarter's rent in '.advance. Next day a lot of furniture was sent in, and a few days later Mr Bevan called again. The rooms were not wanted for himself, he then said, but for a nephew ■who was to return from foreign parts. This nephew might arrive any day, or not for a month or two ; in any case the rooms must be in readiness for him when he reached England. And now comes the queer part of the story, sir. Fifteen months have gone by since, and the nephew has never put in an appearance to this day. The rooms are still locked up and empty." " Have you not seen anything of Mr Bevan in the interim ?" " Yes, sir, he ha9 called three or four times. It was in April when I saw him la3t. He looked over the rooms, as he always does. And when I asked when he might expect the gentleman ho Baid jnatters of business had detained him much longer than he expected; that was all the answer I got, and it's pretty much the same answer that he's given me before. The rent'B always paid a quarter in advance, my missis opens the windows and dusts out the rooms once a mouth, and then the keys are hung on a nail again over my fireplace, ready to be handed to the traveller whenever he may come for them, either by day or by night." Somehow after the date of my gossip with Daniel Ivy I no longer seemed-to feel myself bo much a stranger in Beryl Mansions as before. I began to regard the dingy old houses with different eyes. The elements of mystery and romance were about me, even among those grimy walls ; as they are about each and all of us if we only know where to look for them.