The Silent House in Pimlico

Fergus Hume

Fergusson Wright Hume was born on 8th July 1859 in England, the second son of Dr. James Hume. The family migrated to New Zealand where Fergus was enrolled at Otago Boys’ High School, and later continued his legal and literary studies at the University of Otago. He received his admission to the bar in 1885 and left New Zealand for the city of Melbourne to become a managing clerk at a solicitors office.

Hume had ambitions of writing for the stage but to attract the interest of theatre managers he decided to pen a novel first. Taking influence from the style and works of Emile Gaboriau he wrote his first full-length work of fiction ‘The Mystery of the Hansom Cab’ (1886). Unfortunately, Hume could not find a publisher interested in his novel and had to publish it himself. The first run of 5000 copies sold out in three weeks and he was approached to sell the rights to a group of Australian speculators for the sum of £50. Although the work was reprinted many times and became the best selling mystery novel of the Victorian era , Hume received no further remuneration and even had to publicly defend its authorship when it was called into dispute.

After the success of ‘The Mystery of the Hansom Cab’ and the Publication of his second novel ‘Professor Brankel’s Secret’ (c.1886), Hume returned to England in 1888 where he resided in London for a few years until moving to the Essex countryside. There he published over 100 novels, mainly in the mystery fiction genre, though none had the success of his début work.

In his later years Hume was known to lecture at young people’s clubs and debating societies. Hume died at Thundersley, Essex, on 12 July 1932.

I have ample time at my command, and I shall only be too happy to place it and myself at your service

THE SILENT HOUSE IN PIMLICO

CHAPTER I.

THE TENANT OF THE SILENT HOUSE

Lucian Denzil was a briefless barrister, who so far departed from the traditions of his brethren of the long robe as not to dwell within the purlieus of the Temple. For certain private reasons, not unconnected with economy, he occupied rooms in Geneva Square, Pimlico; and, for the purposes of his profession, repaired daily, from ten to four, to Serjeant’s Inn, where he shared an office with a friend equally briefless and poor.

This state of things sounds hardly enviable, but Lucian, being young and independent to the extent of £300 a year, was not dissatisfied with his position. As his age was only twenty-five, there was ample time, he thought, to succeed in his profession; and, pending that desirable consummation, he cultivated the muses on a little oatmeal, after the fashion of his kind. There have been lives less happily circumstanced.

Geneva Square was a kind of backwater of the great river of town life which swept past its entrance with speed and clamour without disturbing the peace within. One long, narrow street led from a roaring thoroughfare into a silent quadrangle of tall grey houses, occupied by lodging-house keepers, city clerks and two or three artists, who represented the Bohemian element of the place. In the centre there was an oasis of green lawn, surrounded by rusty iron railings the height of a man, dotted with elms of considerable age, and streaked with narrow paths of yellow gravel.

The surrounding houses represented an eminently respectable appearance, with their immaculately clean steps, white-curtained windows, and neat boxes of flowers. The windows glittered like diamonds, the door-knobs and plates shone with a yellow lustre, and there were no sticks, or straws, or waste paper lying about to mar the tidy look of the square.

With one exception, Geneva Square was a pattern of all that was desirable in the way of cleanliness and order. One might hope to find such a haven in some somnolent cathedral town, but scarcely in the grimy, smoky, restless metropolis of London.

The exception to the notable spotlessness of the neighborhood was No. 13, a house in the centre of the side opposite to the entrance. Its windows were dusty, and without blinds or curtains, there were no flower-boxes on the ledges, the steps lacked whitewash, and the iron railings looked rusty for want of paint. Stray straws and scraps of paper found their way down the area, where the cracked pavement was damp with green slime. Such beggars as occasionally wandered into the square, to the scandal of its inhabitants, camped on the doorstep; and the very door itself presented a battered, dissolute appearance.

Yet, for all its ill looks and disreputable suggestions, those who dwelt in Geneva Square would not have seen it furbished up and occupied for any money. They spoke about it in whispers, with ostentatious tremblings, and daunted looks, for No. 13 was supposed to be haunted, and had been empty for over twenty years. By reason of its legend, its loneliness and grim appearance, it was known as the Silent House, and formed quite a feature of the place. Murder had been done long ago in one of its empty, dusty rooms, and it was since then that the victim walked. Lights, said the ghost-seers, had been seen flitting from window to window, groans were sometimes heard, and the apparition of a little old woman in brocaded silk and high-heeled shoes appeared on occasions. Hence the Silent House bore an uncanny reputation.

How much truth there was in these stories it is impossible to say; but sure enough, in spite of a low rental, no tenant would take No. 13 and face its ghostly terrors. House and apparition and legend had become quite a tradition, when the whole fantasy was ended in the summer of ‘95 by the unexpected occupation of the mansion. Mr. Mark Berwin, a gentleman of mature age, who came from nobody knew where, rented No. 13, and established himself therein to lead a strange and lonely life.

At first, the gossips, strong in ghostly tradition, declared that the new tenant would not remain a week in the house; but as the week extended into six months, and Mr. Berwin showed no signs of leaving, they left off speaking of the ghost and took to discussing the man himself. In a short space of time quite a collection of stories were told about the newcomer and his strange ways.

Lucian heard many of these tales from his landlady. How Mr. Berwin lived all alone in the Silent House without servant or companion; how he spoke to none, and admitted no one into the mansion; how he appeared to have plenty of money, and was frequently seen coming home more or less intoxicated; and how Mrs. Kebby, the deaf charwoman who cleaned out Mr. Berwin’s rooms, declined to sleep in the house because she considered that there was something wrong about her employer.

To such gossip Denzil paid little attention, until his skein of life became unexpectedly entangled with that of the strange gentleman. The manner of their meeting was unforeseen and peculiar.

One foggy November night, Lucian, returning from the theatre, shortly after eleven o’clock, dismissed his hansom at the entrance to the square and walked thereinto through the thick mist, trusting to find his way home by reason of two years’ familiarity with the precincts. As it was impossible to see even the glare of the near gas lamp in the murky air, Lucian felt his way cautiously along the railings. The square was filled with fog, dense to the eye and cold to the feel, so that Lucian shivered with the chill, in spite of the fur coat over his evening clothes.

As he edged gingerly along, and thought longingly of the fire and supper awaiting him in his comfortable rooms, he was startled by hearing a deep, rich voice boom out almost at his feet. To make the phenomenon still more remarkable, the voice shaped itself into certain well-known words of Shakespeare:

Oh! boomed this vox et præterea nihil in rather husky tones, Oh! that a man should put an enemy in his mouth to steal away his brains! And then through the mist and darkness came the unmistakable sound of sobs.

God bless me! cried Lucian, leaping back, with shaken nerves. Who is this? Who are you?

A lost soul! wailed the deep voice, which God will not bless! And then came the sobbing again.

It made Denzil’s blood run cold to hear this unseen creature weeping in the gloom. Moving cautiously in the direction of the sound, he stumbled against a man with his folded arms resting on the railings, and his face bent down on his arms. He made no attempt to turn when Lucian touched him, but with downcast head continued to weep and moan in a very frenzy of self-pity.

Here! said the young barrister, shaking the stranger by the shoulder, what is the matter with you?

Drink! stuttered the man, suddenly turning with a dramatic gesture. I am an object lesson to teetotalers; a warning to topers; a modern helot made shameful to disgust youth with vice.

You had better go home, sir, said Lucian sharply.

I can’t find home. It is somewhere hereabout, but where, I don’t know.

You are in Geneva Square, said Denzil, trying to sharpen the dulled wits of the man.

I wish I was in No. 13 of it, sighed the stranger. Where the deuce is No. 13? Not in this Cloudcuckooland, anyhow.

Oh! cried Lucian, taking the man’s arm. Come with me. I’ll lead you home, Mr. Berwin.

Scarcely had the name passed his lips than the stranger drew back suddenly, with a hasty exclamation. Some suspicion seemed to engender a mixture of terror and defiance which placed him on his guard against undue intimacy, even when some undefined fear was knocking at his heart. Who are you? he demanded in a steadier tone. How do you know my name?

My name is Denzil, Mr. Berwin, and I live in one of the houses of this square. As you mention No. 13, I know you can be none other than Mr. Mark Berwin, the tenant of the Silent House.

The dweller in the haunted house, sneered Berwin, evidently relieved, who stays there with ghosts, and worse than ghosts.

Worse than ghosts?

The phantoms of my own sins, young man. I have sowed folly, and now I am reaping the crop. I am—— Here his further speech was interrupted by a fit of coughing, which shook his lean figure severely. At its conclusion he was so exhausted that he was forced to support himself against the railings. A portion of the crop, he murmured.

Lucian was sorry for the man, who seemed scarcely capable of looking after himself, and he thought it unwise to leave him in such a plight. At the same time, he was impatient of lingering in the heart of the clammy fog at such a late hour; so, as his companion seemed indisposed to move, he caught him again by the arm without ceremony. The abrupt action seemed to waken again the fears of Berwin.

Where would you take me? he asked, resisting the gentle force used by Lucian.

To your own house. You will be ill if you stay here.

You are not one of them? asked the man suddenly.

One of whom?

One of those who wish to harm me?

Denzil began to think he had to do with a madman, and to gain his ends he spoke to him in a soothing manner, as he would to a child: I wish to do you good, Mr. Berwin, said he gently. Come to your home.

Home! home! Ah, God, I have no home!

Nevertheless, he gathered himself together, and with his arm in that of his guide, stumbled along in the thick, chill mist. Lucian knew the position of No. 13 well, as it almost faced the lodgings occupied by himself, and by skirting the railings with due caution, he managed to half lead, half drag his companion to the house. When they stood before the door, and Berwin had assured himself that he was actually home by the use of his latch-key, Denzil wished him a curt good-night. And I should advise you to go to bed at once, he concluded, turning to descend the steps.

Don’t go! Don’t go! cried Berwin, seizing the young man by the arm. I am afraid to go in by myself—all is so dark and cold! Wait until I get a light!

As the creature’s nerves seemed to be unhinged by over-indulgence in alcohol, and he stood gasping and shivering on the threshold like some beaten animal, Lucian took compassion on him.

I’ll see you indoors, said he, and striking a match, stepped into the darkness after the man. The hall of No. 13 seemed to be almost as cold as the world without, and the trifling glimmer of the lucifer served rather to reveal than dispel the surrounding darkness. The light, as it were, hollowed a gulf out of the tremendous gloom and made the house tenfold more ghostly than before. The footsteps of Denzil and Berwin sounding on the bare boards—for the hall was uncarpeted—waked hollow echoes, and when they paused the silence which ensued seemed almost menacing. The grim reputation of the mansion, its gloom and silence, appealed powerfully to the latent superstition of Lucian. How much more nearly, then, would it touch the shaken and excited nerves of the tragic drunkard who dwelt continually amid its terrors!

Berwin opened a door on the right-hand side of the hall and turned up the light of a handsome oil-lamp which had been screwed down pending his arrival. This lamp was placed on a small square table covered with a white cloth and a dainty cold supper. The young barrister noted that the napery, cutlery, and crystal were all of the finest; that the viands were choice; that champagne and claret were the beverages. Evidently Berwin was a luxurious gentleman and indulgent to his appetites.

Lucian tried to gain a long look at him in the mellow light, but Berwin kept his face turned away, and seemed as anxious now for his visitor to go as he had been for him to enter. Denzil, quick in comprehension, took the hint at once.

I’ll go now, as you have the light burning, said he. Good-night.

Good-night, replied Berwin shortly, and added to his discourtesy by letting Lucian find his way out alone.

And so ended the barrister’s first meeting with the strange tenant of the Silent House.

CHAPTER II.

SHADOWS ON THE BLIND

The landlady of Denzil was a rather uncommon specimen of the class. She inclined to plumpness, was lively in the extreme, wore very fashionable garments of the brightest colours, and—although somewhat elderly—still cherished a hope that some young man would elevate her to the rank of a matron.

At present, Miss Julia Greeb was an unwedded damsel of forty summers, who, with the aid of art, was making desperate but ineffectual efforts to detain the youth which was slipping from her. She pinched her waist, dyed her hair, powdered her face, and affected juvenile dress of the white frock and blue sash kind. In the distance she looked a girlish twenty; close at hand various artifices aided her to pass for thirty; and it was only in the solitude of her own room that her real age was apparent. Never did woman wage a more resolute fight with Time than did Miss Greeb.

But this was the worst and most frivolous side of her character, for she was really a good-hearted, cheery little woman, with a brisk manner, and a flow of talk unequalled in Geneva Square. She had been born in the house she occupied, after the death of her father, and had grown up to assist her mother in ministering to the exactions of a continuous procession of lodgers. These came and went, married and died; but not one of the desirable young men had borne Miss Greeb to the altar, so that when her mother died the fair Julia almost despaired of attaining to the dignity of wifehood. Nevertheless, she continued to keep boarders, and to make attempts to captivate the hearts of such bachelors as she judged weak in character.

Hitherto all her efforts had been more or less of a mercantile character, with an eye to money; but when Lucian Denzil appeared on the scene, the poor little woman really fell in love with his handsome face. But, in strange contrast to her other efforts, Miss Greeb never for a moment deemed that Lucian would marry her. He was her god, her ideal of manhood, and to him she offered worship, and burnt incense after the manner of her kind.

Denzil occupied a bedroom and sitting-room, both pleasant, airy apartments, looking out on to the square. Miss Greeb attended to his needs herself, and brought up his breakfast with her own fair hands, happy for the day if her admired lodger conversed with her for a few moments before reading the morning paper. Then Miss Greeb would retire to her own sitting-room and indulge in day dreams which she well knew would never be realised. The romances she wove herself were even more marvellous than those she read in her favourite penny novelettes; but, unlike the printed tales, her romance never culminated in marriage. Poor brainless, silly, pitiful Miss Greeb; she would have made a good wife and a fond mother, but by some irony of fate she was destined to be neither; and the comedy of her husband-hunting youth was now changing into the lonely tragedy of disappointed spinsterhood. She was one of the world’s unknown martyrs, and her fate merits tears rather than laughter.

On the morning after his meeting with Berwin, the young barrister sat at breakfast, with Miss Greeb in anxious attendance. Having poured out his tea, and handed him his paper, and ascertained that his breakfast was to his liking, Miss Greeb lingered about the room, putting this straight and that crooked, in the hope that Lucian would converse with her. In this she was gratified, as Denzil wished to learn details about the strange man he had assisted on the previous night, and he knew that no one could afford him more precise information than his brisk landlady, to whom was known all the gossip of the neighbourhood. His first word made Miss Greeb flutter back to the table like a dove to its nest.

Do you know anything about No. 13? asked Lucian, stirring his tea.

Do I know anything about No. 13? repeated Miss Greeb in shrill amazement. Of course I do, Mr. Denzil. There ain’t a thing I don’t know about that house. Ghosts and vampires and crawling spectres live in it—that they do.

Do you call Mr. Berwin a ghost?

No; nor nothing half so respectable. He is a mystery, sir, that’s what Mr. Berwin is, and I don’t care if he hears me commit myself so far.

In what way is he a mystery? demanded Denzil, approaching the matter with more particularity.

Why, said Miss Greeb, evidently puzzled how to answer this leading question, no one can find out anything about him. He’s full of secrets and underhand goings on. It ain’t respectable not to be fair and above board—that it ain’t.

I see no reason why a quiet-living old gentleman should tell his private affairs to the whole square, remarked Lucian drily.

Those who have nothing bad to conceal needn’t be afraid of speaking out, retorted Miss Greeb tartly. And the way in which Mr. Berwin lives is enough to make one think him a coiner, or a thief, or even a murderer—that it is!

But what grounds have you to believe him any one of the three?

This question also puzzled the landlady, as she had no reasonable grounds for her wild statements. Nevertheless, she made a determined attempt to substantiate them by hearsay evidence. Mr. Berwin, said she in significant tones, lives all alone in that haunted house.

Why not? Every man has the right to be a misanthrope if he chooses.

He has no right to behave so, in a respectable square, replied Miss Greeb, shaking her head. There’s only two rooms of that large house furnished, and all the rest is given up to dust and ghosts. Mr. Berwin won’t have a servant to live under his roof, and Mrs. Kebby, who does his charing, says he drinks awful. Then he has his meals sent in from the Nelson Hotel round the corner, and eats them all alone. He don’t receive no letters, he don’t read no newspapers, and stays in all day, only coming out at night, like an owl. If he ain’t a criminal, Mr. Denzil, why does he carry on so?

He may dislike his fellow-men, and desire to live a secluded life.

Miss Greeb still shook her head. He may dislike his fellow-men, she said with emphasis, but that don’t keep him from seeing them—ah! that it don’t.

Is there anything wrong in that? said Lucian, contemptuous of these cobweb objections.

Perhaps not, Mr. Denzil; but where do those he sees come from?

How do you mean, Miss Greeb?

They don’t go in by the front door, that’s certain, continued the little woman darkly. There’s only one entrance to this square, sir, and Blinders, the policeman, is frequently on duty there. Two or three nights he’s met Mr. Berwin coming in after dark and exchanged friendly greetings with him, and each time Mr. Berwin has been alone!

Well! well! What of that? said Denzil impatiently.

"This much, Mr. Denzil, that Blinders has gone round the