Fergus Hume

“ Mrs. Webb looked intelligently at her husband. “Jimmy!” she said, meaningly.
“Yes!” he nodded apprehendingly. “Jimmy Took. What he don’t know about the business no one knows. I’ll send out for him, instanter,” and the ex-soldier left the room whistling an army song, while his wife began to clear away the dishes, talking all the time.
“Jimmy will lead you to the lane, sir. He knows the way blindfold, and it’s as well that he does, seeing how black the night is.”
“Who is Jimmy Took?” asked Dick, lighting his pipe and straddling before the fire with his hands in his pockets. ”

“ Jimmy, evidently being original, had to endure the usual punishment of originality, which is always suspected and condemned by the ordinary person. Hustings was pleased that his good fortune should have brought him into contact with such an unusual human being. If Jimmy proved to be what he was reported to be—for the lawyer read between the lines—then he would be a useful helper. “And heaven only knows how badly I need a helper, muttered Dick, reflecting on the quagmire of doubt and perplexity, in which he was, so far, vainly struggling. ”

“ I’ll leave you to speak with him, sir, as I’ve to attend to customers in the tap-room. And Jimmy!” he fixed the boy with a terrific N.C.O. glare, “you do what Mr. Hustings here tells you: he being an officer, who don’t take no back-talk, nor side-answers. What he says—goes. D’jeer!” and with a smart salute to Dick’s departed dignity as a captain, the ex-soldier wheeled round with military precision, and departed.
Jimmy looked after him with twinkling eyes, and then turned those same twinkling eyes towards Dick, evidently possessing a sense of humour. ”

“ But he’s a queer little chap, Mr. Hustings, as you’ll see when he comes. And such a reader.”
“Oh! Studious is he? What does he read?”
“Mostly them detective stories, sir,” Mrs. Webb paused in her clearing away to shudder. “I never did see such a child for horrors. Wants to be a detective and track down people to hang ’em. If he was a child of mine I’d slap that out of him, if it took years.”
“Detectives are useful people, Mrs. Webb. But for them many of us wouldn’t sleep so soundly at night. So Jimmy is interested in this business?” ”

“ Dick shook his head, guessing why the man was confused, “I am a common-sense lawyer, Webb—I think you told me your name is Webb.”
“Yes, sir. And I take it, sir, that you’re an officer?”
“An ex-officer, R.G.A. Like yourself, one of the ‘also rans,’ Webb. But this Whispering Lane: is that story I repeated to you, as told to me, a true one?”
“Quite true, sir. Mrs. Brine did live in that bungalow; she did kill herself when her husband was killed; and she does haunt the lane.” ”

“ The war, Mr. Hustings. We are the dice of the gods, and they have shaken us into different positions during the last few years.”
This picturesque description of post-war circumstances, coming from such an unusual quarter, increased the lawyer’s interest. But for the pressing business on hand he would have probed the character of this unusual lad, forthwith. As it was—“Can you guide me straightly to this place?”
“Easily, Mr. Hustings.”
“It is a dark night and rainy, Mrs. Webb says.”
“I am like a cat, sir: all places, all weathers are alike to me,” smiled the boy. ”

“ Webb who gave the information. “Mrs. Jerr is the widow of a Hong Kong silk-merchant, who has lived all her life in the East. She brought Wu Ti with her when she returned to England after the death of her husband. He’s devoted to her is Wu Ti. Although,” added Mrs. Webb with a shiver, “I don’t like him myself: a creepy-crawly kind of man.”
“It’s the English way of looking at foreigners that speaks, sir,” said Webb, with a broad smile. “Wu Ti’s just the same as any other Chink. Eve seen lots of ’em in the Mile End Road, when I lived there, afore the war. ”

“ I never saw him.”
“No more did I,” struck in Webb, hastily, “queer cove keeping himself to himself in the way he did.”
“Like Mrs. Jerr,” observed Dick, dryly; “by the way, was this voice, or these voices, heard in Mrs. Brine’s time?”
“No, sir. Only during the last few months have the voices been heard.”
“And Mrs. Jerr has been in the bungalow for six months,” mused Hustings, with a nod. “I wonder if she has anything to do with the business—or Wu Ti?”
Mrs. Webb laughed disbelievingly. “She doesn’t bother about spirit rubbish, Mr. Hustings, and is willing to let anyone examine the bungalow. ”

“ Webb grinned at Dick to intimate that his wife’s bark was a deal worse than her bite. “She don’t mean half she says, sir.”
“Oh yes she does, and a lot more if she’s time to say it,” snapped Mrs. Webb, with a betraying smile. “But Mr. Hustings doesn’t want to hear of your goings-on, Alf; tell him about Mrs. Jerr.”
Webb scratched his head again. “There ain’t anything to tell.”
“Well,” volunteered his wife, placidly, “you’re about right. She’s a quiet old lady, Mr. Hustings, keeping herself to herself, and Wu Ti looks after her.” ”

“ But Minnie,” he grinned at his wife, “she’s lived in this here village all her life and don’t know things.”
“I knew enough to marry you when you were billeted here,” said the landlady, tartly. “Father was alive then. Now you’ve got this hotel he left me, and me too. What else do you want?” ”

“ Lots go straight to the lane and straight back to London when they’ve heard what they came to hear. And some stay with friends, going night after night to listen. No, sir,” she passed back the photograph to its owner, “I don’t know him.”
Baffled in this direction, Dick tried another. “This Mrs. Jerr. Who is she?”
“Oh, quite a nice old lady, sir, who rented the Brine bungalow from Mr. Chane some six months ago,” it was Webb who explained, anticipating his wife. “I’ve taken eggs and milk to her lots of times, when Wu Ti didn’t come for them.”
“A Chinaman!” Hustings feigned ignorance. ”