NO. 119 GREAT PORTER SQUARE IS LET TO A NEW TENANT.

To the closed shutters of No.119 Great Porter Square was attached a board, on which were painted the words, “This House to Let on reasonable terms, or the Lease to be sold. Apply to Mr. Stapleton, House Agent, Great Andrew Street, Bloomsbury.” The board had grown disconsolate-looking and disreputable, as though it was a partner in the disgrace which had fallen upon the tenement.

At the time the notice “To Let” was attached to the shutters, the agent had no hope whatever of letting the house. “There isn’t a chance of anybody taking it,” he said, “for at least three months.” The three months passed, and no probable tenant had made his appearance. “There’s nothing for it but patience,” he then said. “Would you live in the house?” asked his wife, when he was dilating upon the folly of people allowing such a chance to escape them. “Not for untold gold!” he replied. “Well then!” she exclaimed; winding up the argument thus, as is the way with women.

He was much astonished, therefore, upon returning to his office from his mid-day chop, to find a gentleman waiting to see him, who, closing the door of the little private room in which he transacted special business, asked him if No.119 Great Porter Square was still to let.

“Yes,” said Mr. Stapleton; “the board’s up; you can see it as you pass the house.”

“I have not passed through Great Porter Square for a long time,” said the gentleman, “and I was not aware that a board was up. I was directed to come to you by a friend, who told me you were the agent.”

“Do you wish to take the house?” asked Mr. Stapleton, looking with some suspicion upon his prospective client.

“I should have no objection,” said the gentleman, “If I can have it on my own terms——”

“On any terms,” interrupted Mr. Stapleton, a little too eagerly, and adding, in correction of his over-haste, “that is, for a certain time—after which, of course, we expect a fair rent. The prejudice against the place must wear away one time or another.”

“But the murder remains,” observed the gentleman, sadly; “time will not wear that away.”

“True,” said Mr. Stapleton, coughing; “nothing can wear that away. But I refer to the sentiment, the feeling, the prejudice.”

“You interrupted me just now,” said the gentleman, coming back to the practical. “I was about to say that I should have no objection to take the house if I can have it on my own terms and conditions. By ‘terms’ I don’t mean money. I have no doubt we shall agree upon the question of rent.”

“We will put the house in repair for you,” said Mr. Stapleton; “you can choose your own paper, and we will give it three good coatings of paint outside. In fact, anything you can suggest we shall be most happy to consider.”

“I have nothing to suggest,” said the gentleman, “and I do not propose to put you to the expense of a shilling for repairs. I will take the house just as it is, if my conditions are complied with.”

Mr. Stapleton looked gravely at his visitor, and said, as he rubbed his chin:

“I don’t think we could let the house for the purposes of exhibition.”

“Good God!” cried the gentleman, “I should hope not. It would be making a trade of murder!”

“My sentiments exactly,” acquiesced Mr. Stapleton, “only you express them so much more forcibly.” At the same time, he began to regard the gentleman as a very queer customer indeed, and to wonder why he was so long in coming to the point. Had he been aware of the gentleman’s inward agitation and anxiety, and of what depended upon the result of this application, his wonder would have been lessened, and he might have raised the rent instead of lowering it.

“May I ask what are your conditions?”

“The first and most important,” replied the gentleman, “is secresy. I wish no one to know that I have taken the house; I wish no one to know that it is let. The board will remain up; the house will remain as it is. All that I shall require of you is the key of the street-door. These conditions complied with, I will pay you six months’ rent in advance, and I will make myself responsible for another six months. It is more than probable—nay, it is almost certain—that before three months are over I shall hand you back the key, with the rent for the additional six months. As a matter of bargain, it is not a bad one for you.”

“I admit it,” said Mr. Stapleton; “what I have to consider, on the other hand, is whether it is a good thing for the house.”

“Do you think you can do better?”

“I do not think I could; yours is the first application I have had since the murder was committed. You shudder, sir! It is enough to make one. If I had not been an agent for the estate, nothing would have induced me to undertake the letting of such a house. What am I to say in case another person, seeing the board still up, applies to me for the particulars?”

“Say that, although the board remains, you have decided not to let the house for two or three months. No one can compel you to let it.”

“Certainly not—certainly not,” said Mr. Stapleton. “You will excuse my remarking that there is something very mysterious in all this, and that you appear singularly anxious to take the house.”

“Your remark is a natural one. There is something mysterious in it, and I am most anxious to become your tenant.”

“You are candid enough in that respect, I must say. Will you favour me with your name and references?—you have references, of course; they are indispensable.”

“I have references, with which you will be satisfied. But I cannot give them to you, nor can I disclose my name, until you say the house is mine, on my conditions—to which I must add another: that my name is not entered on your books for your clerks to comment upon and prattle about. If you agree, and my references are satisfactory, the matter can be concluded at once. If they are not satisfactory, I cannot expect you to accept me as a tenant. It will be a grief to me, but I shall be compelled to submit, and must seek another mode of carrying out my designs.”

So much was Mr. Stapleton’s curiosity excited that he consented to the proposed arrangement.

“Now for the references,” he said.

“I will take you to them,” responded the gentleman. “I am most earnestly desirous that the affair be concluded immediately. Charge me what you please for your loss of time in accompanying me, and believe that if it be in my power to show my gratitude to you by-and-bye, I shall not miss the opportunity.”

Unusual as was this mode of conducting his business, Mr. Stapleton consented, and accompanied the gentleman to a house in the most fashionable part of London, where he obtained a recommendation in every way satisfactory, and then to a common locality, where a private detective, known to him by name, vouched for the respectability of his proposed tenant.

“Is this a police affair, then?” he asked of the detective.

“Perhaps it is and perhaps it isn’t,” replied the detective. “What you’ve got to do with it is to take your rent, and keep your mouth shut.”

“A wink’s as good as a nod,” said Mr. Stapleton, and departed with his tenant to his office, where the preliminaries were completed, and the rent paid to him. He whistled softly when he heard the name of the tenant, which was given to him in confidence, but he took the detective’s advice, and kept his mouth shut—except to his wife, upon his return home; but even to her he would impart nothing more than that he had that day transacted the strangest piece of business in his experience.

Long before this strange piece of business was concluded, Becky had received the following reply to her letter:

“My Darling,—Your news is most important, and little Fanny has earned my undying gratitude. As for yourself, I am at a loss what to say. The evidences of indomitable spirit you have displayed have filled me with wonder. It is given to me to know, as no other man has ever known, of what a noble woman’s love is capable. You would inspire a dying man with hope and courage; but remember, you are a woman, and can only do, under certain circumstances, what it is in a woman’s power to do. You have the heart of the bravest man, but you have not his strength. I know the villain Pelham, otherwise Richard Manx, to be a coward, but it is hard to say to what extremes a desperate man, brought to bay, may be driven. False courage may come to him in such a crisis—to last most likely but for a few minutes, or seconds even, but long enough to do a deed which may bring life-long sorrow to a loving heart—to my loving heart, which beats for you, as yours beats for me. Such a risk must not be run. You could cope, I believe, better than I could with such a creature as my murdered father’s widow, upon whose soul lies the guilt of the death of two noble gentlemen, but you are not the equal of villains like Pelham, who would strike a woman, and tremble in the presence of a man. I feel faint to think of the peril you were in when you and your brave little friend entered Richard Manx’s room in the dead of night. You do not realise it; I do, and I must take some step to avert danger from the girl I love, and to bring the murderer of my father to justice. The time for watching is over; the time for action has arrived. It is now for me to take up the thread of evidence which you have woven, and to strengthen it into a chain from which the guilty cannot escape. Time is too precious to waste; not another day, not another hour, must be lost. I agree with you that Pelham has reason to suspect that my dear father left behind him, and concealed, a document which may re-establish me in my place among men, and supply damning evidence against those who brought him to his death. It is, I see well, the only direct evidence upon which we can rely—for though Pelham, by coming to your house under a disguise, and by his subsequent actions, has laid himself open to the gravest suspicion and to certain disgrace, I doubt whether what could be brought against him would be sufficiently strong to clear up the awful mystery of my father’s murder. And that is my first duty—to leave no stone unturned, to work with all my strength and cunning, with all my heart and soul and body, to satisfy the claims of justice. My father’s blood calls out to me to devote myself utterly, to risk every danger, to die if need be, in the pursuit and accomplishment of this sacred duty. To bring disgrace upon Pelham is not sufficient—has he not already reached that end in his life and character? Something more than suspicious motive is needed, and I will not rest till he is hunted down, and his guilt brought home to him. Again and again I implore you to leave him now entirely to me. Go up to his room no more, or you may mar the steps I have already taken, and am about to take. I have told you that, when I was living in my dear father’s house, I had in my employ a detective who tracked the shameless woman to an appointment with Pelham, and through whose instrumentality I hoped to open my father’s eyes to the true character of the wife who was disgracing him. You know how she worked upon my father’s deep love for her, and frustrated my just design. The use of the detective was, and is, revolting to me, but there was (and to a certain extent is) no other way of obtaining evidence. This detective, with men under him, is again in my employ. It was he who brought my Statement to you when I lately returned from Liverpool. Mr. Pelham, in his own proper person, and in the disguise he has assumed, is now under strict surveillance; and the partner of his guilt, my father’s widow, is also being watched. Not a movement outside their houses will escape notice; nor shall they escape, in their own persons, if they make the attempt. I think something of the kind is meditated, for Mrs. Holdfast—it maddens me to think that I must call her by the name which I hope you will one day bear—is converting into money all my father’s property, and she is not doing this without a motive. Let her beware! The sword is hanging over her head, and may fall at any moment. I can imagine no greater misery for this woman than to be thrust upon the world in a state of poverty. For even if she could be proved guilty of nothing but love’s treachery as regards my father, I shall have no pity for her. She has tasted the pleasures of wealth, and it would poison all her after-life to be deprived of it. I write bitterly, and I do not attempt to disguise my feelings. The face of this woman—fair, alas! but that is one of the mockeries of nature—as it rises before me, seems almost to blight the sweet beauty which lies in innocence, truth and purity. Forgive me for my bitterness; I have suffered much; had it not been for you I should have lost all faith in goodness. How much I owe you!

“It does not surprise me to learn, through Fanny’s reading of the letter which Mr. Pelham gave her to deliver to Mrs. Holdfast, that Pelham and she are at variance upon monetary matters. Such natures as theirs are of necessity grasping and avaricious, and although they are bound to each other by the closest and most dangerous ties, there cannot possibly be harmony between them; experience has made each suspicious of the other, and has shown them, through the mirror of their own souls, how little of truth and honesty they can expect from each other. Had my father died a natural death, I should have been content to leave them to their own punishment—bitterer than any enemy could have made it for them.

“By to-night’s train a messenger leaves for Paris; to-morrow morning he will receive at the Poste Restante the letter Mrs. Holdfast wrote to Fanny’s imaginary sister, Nelly. There may be nothing in it, but I have caught the inspiration of your own bold spirit; not a chance must be lost sight of. The messenger will open and read the letter in Paris, and, if necessary, he will reply to it and post his reply there. This, in any event, will avert suspicion from your brave little Fanny—God bless her!—in case she and Mrs. Holdfast should meet again.

“You will readily understand that the expenses of all these proceedings are more than I could meet, in my present position, unless I had at my back a rich and generous friend. I have that friend in Adolph, who knows everything; I have concealed nothing from him; his indignation against our enemies, and his sympathy for ourselves, are unbounded. He has supplied me with ample means, not caring, he says, whether the money is ever repaid. After all, my dear, there is more light than shadow in the world.

“With my dearest love, for ever yours,
“Frederick.”