The Mystery of M. Felix. B. L. Farjeon
lay thick upon what have been ridiculously called the good old times. We were the first to practically recognize this truth, and we have done our best to make it popular. It is from lowly annals that we culled the romance of 'Great Porter Square,' and it is from somewhat similar annals that we cull the present 'Mystery of M. Felix.' The story will be found as strange as it is true. All the passions of human nature are expressed in it, and there is one episode at least--even up to the point which it has already reached--so singular and startling as to be absolutely unique.
"We draw special attention to the words in our last sentence, 'even up to the point which it has already reached,' and we beg our readers to bear them well in mind. It may be in their remembrance that when we commenced to unravel the mystery of 'Great Porter Square' we had no knowledge of its conclusion. We held in our hands certain slight threads which we followed patiently up, and of which we kept firm hold, until we had woven them into a strand which villainy and duplicity could not break. We championed the cause of a man who, upon no evidence whatever--simply from the officious and mistaken zeal of a few policemen--was brought up to the police court on the suspicion of being in some undiscovered way connected with a crime with which all England was ringing. He was remanded day after day for the production of evidence which was never forthcoming, and day after day we protested against the injustice of which it was sought to make him a victim. The slender threads in our possession we held fast, as we have said, until at length we were rewarded with a gratifying success, until at length we brought the guilt home to the guilty parties. We ourselves were misled by the specious statements of one of the miscreants, a woman, we regret to say, who was one of the two principal actors in a plot which was very nearly successful, and which, indeed, did for a certain time succeed. We are in a similar position with respect to the 'Mystery of M. Felix.' The information already in our possession leads us to a point of great interest, and there strangely breaks off. But we pledge ourselves to pursue the story to an end, and to unearth what is at present hidden in darkness. Our agents are at work in this country and elsewhere, and we are satisfied that they will succeed in removing the veil from a mystery which is a common topic of conversation and discussion in all classes of society."
CHAPTER VII.
AN EXAMINATION OF CERTAIN DISCREPANCIES IN THE STATEMENTS OF THE THREE PRINCIPAL WITNESSES.
"The night of the 16th of January will be long remembered. For three weeks the snow had fallen, intermittently, it is true, but for hours together. The roads were almost blockaded, and traffic was carried on under exceptional difficulties. The season, which in the early part of December had promised to be unusually mild, suddenly vindicated its reputation, and we were treated to an old-fashioned, bitter winter of great severity. On the evening of the 15th of January the frost was most severe, its intensity lasting until some time after daybreak, the thermometer showing at eight o'clock A.M. close upon sixteen degrees of frost. When it began to snow again people, congratulated themselves that a thaw was setting in. They were mistaken. Had it been possible the snow would have frozen as soon as it reached the ground, but it fell in too great quantities for such a result. In the evening a piercing wind raged through the thoroughfares, and the snow continued to fall more heavily than during the day. In some places there was a drift almost, if not quite, man high, and our columns on the morning of the 17th recorded the discovery of three lifeless persons, one man and two women, who had been frozen to death during the night. With these unfortunates we have nothing to do; what concerns us and our story is that on the night of the 16th, Mrs. Middlemore, a housekeeper in one of the old houses in Gerard Street, Soho, very imprudently went out just before midnight to fetch her supper-beer. Even the raging storm did not prevent her from indulging in her usual habit, the temptation of beer being too strong for her, and the prospect of going to bed without it being too appalling to risk. She saw that the street door was secure when she left the house, and was surprised, upon her return, to find it open. These, and many other particulars which will be duly recorded, are statements which have already appeared in public print, and we are not responsible for them. At the moment of her reaching the street door the circumstance of its being open was impressed upon her by the appearance of a man hurriedly leaving the house. He did not stop to address her, and she had no opportunity of asking his business there, because he flew by her 'like a flash of lightning,' she says. Naturally alarmed, she raised her voice and cried, 'Police!' One, Constable Wigg, happened to be not far distant, and he responded to her summons. Having heard what Mrs. Middlemore had to say, he saw that there were two things to attend to--one, to ascertain whether anything had occurred within the house; the other, to follow the man who had escaped from it with such celerity. As he could not fulfil these two duties at one and the same time, he in his turn summoned to his assistance a brother constable of the name of Nightingale. This officer pursued the man, and Constable Wigg and Mrs. Middlemore entered the house.
"Now, with the exception of Mrs. Middlemore, there was only one regular tenant in the house, M. Felix, who had lived there for nearly two years, and concerning whom, up to the night of January 16th, very little appears to have been known, except that he was a retired gentleman, living on his means, fond of pleasure, and of a generous disposition to those who served him well. Mrs. Middlemore speaks in the highest terms of him, but she judges only from one point of view, that of a landlady who has a liberal lodger. Otherwise, she has no knowledge of him, and cannot say where he came from, whether he was married or single (the circumstance of his living a bachelor life would not definitely decide this question), or whether he has any relations in any part of the world. There are many gentlemen of the description of M. Felix pursuing their mysterious careers in this great city, a goodly number of them under false names.
"M. Felix was a very peculiar gentleman. He paid for the entire house, although he occupied only three rooms, a sitting-room, a dining-room, and a bedroom. His stipulation when he first entered into possession was that under no circumstances should any other tenant but himself be allowed to occupy a room, and he went so far as to refuse permission to Mrs. Middlemore for any friends of hers to sleep in the building. Her duties consisted in attending to him and to his rooms, which she entered and set in order only when he directed her, and for these slight services she was extravagantly paid. Such a tenant was a treasure, and she appreciated him accordingly, not venturing to disobey him in the slightest particular. He had taken the greatest pains to impress upon her that she was never, under any circumstances whatever, to come to his rooms unless she was summoned, and from what we have gathered of his character, M. Felix was a gentleman who could be stern as well as pleasant, and was not a person who would allow his orders to be disobeyed without making the delinquent suffer for it. These imperative instructions rendered Constable Wigg's course difficult. Mrs. Middlemore had left M. Felix in the house when she went to fetch her supper-beer, and it was in the highest degree improbable that he should have quitted it during her absence. He was not a young man, he was fond of his ease, and the storm was raging furiously. Nothing less than a matter of life or death would tempt a man of M. Felix's disposition from his cosy fireside on such a night. Constable Wigg suggested that he should go up-stairs to M. Felix's rooms, and ascertain whether he was in and safe, but Mrs. Middlemore would not listen to the suggestion, and of course without her consent Constable Wigg could not carry his proposition into effect. In a casual examination of those parts of the premises which Mrs. Middlemore allowed him to enter he saw nothing to excite his suspicions, and he decided to wait for the return of Constable Nightingale before he proceeded further.
"We break off here for a moment for the purpose of making brief mention of one or two peculiar features in this singular affair, leaving Constable Wigg and Mrs. Middlemore standing in the passage or the kitchen--(they say the passage, we presume to say the kitchen, where doubtless a cheerful fire was blazing; policemen are human)--at half-past twelve or a quarter to one in the middle of the night, waiting for Constable Nightingale to report progress. Curiously enough, the time cannot be exactly fixed, because the kitchen clock had stopped, because Constable Nightingale's watch had stopped also, and because Constable Wigg did not wear one. In an affair of this description it is as well not to lose sight of the smallest details. We arrive at the time, half-past twelve or a quarter to one, approximately. Even in such a storm as was then raging through the streets, Big Ben of Westminster made itself heard, and it transpires, from a statement volunteered by Constable Wigg, that the great bell was proclaiming the hour