The Eccentric Seclusion of the Old Lady The conversation of Rupert Grant had two great elements of interest--first, the long fantasias of detective deduction in which he was engaged, and, second, his genuine romantic interest in the life of London.His brother Basil said of him: "His reasoning is particularly cold and clear, and invariably leads him wrong.But his poetry comes in abruptly and leads him right."Whether this was true of Rupert as a whole, or no, it was certainly curiously supported by one story about him which Ithink worth telling.
We were walking along a lonely terrace in Brompton together.The street was full of that bright blue twilight which comes about half past eight in summer, and which seems for the moment to be not so much a coming of darkness as the turning on of a new azure illuminator, as if the earth were lit suddenly by a sapphire sun.
In the cool blue the lemon tint of the lamps had already begun to flame, and as Rupert and I passed them, Rupert talking excitedly, one after another the pale sparks sprang out of the dusk.Rupert was talking excitedly because he was trying to prove to me the nine hundred and ninety-ninth of his amateur detective theories.
He would go about London, with this mad logic in his brain, seeing a conspiracy in a cab accident, and a special providence in a falling fusee.His suspicions at the moment were fixed upon an unhappy milkman who walked in front of us.So arresting were the incidents which afterwards overtook us that I am really afraid that I have forgotten what were the main outlines of the milkman's crime.I think it had something to do with the fact that he had only one small can of milk to carry, and that of that he had left the lid loose and walked so quickly that he spilled milk on the pavement.This showed that he was not thinking of his small burden, and this again showed that he anticipated some other than lacteal business at the end of his walk, and this (taken in conjunction with something about muddy boots) showed something else that I have entirely forgotten.I am afraid that I derided this detailed revelation unmercifully; and I am afraid that Rupert Grant, who, though the best of fellows, had a good deal of the sensitiveness of the artistic temperament, slightly resented my derision.He endeavoured to take a whiff of his cigar, with the placidity which he associated with his profession, but the cigar, I think, was nearly bitten through.
"My dear fellow," he said acidly, "I'll bet you half a crown that wherever that milkman comes to a real stop I'll find out something curious.""My resources are equal to that risk," I said, laughing."Done."We walked on for about a quarter of an hour in silence in the trail of the mysterious milkman.He walked quicker and quicker, and we had some ado to keep up with him; and every now and then he left a splash of milk, silver in the lamplight.Suddenly, almost before we could note it, he disappeared down the area steps of a house.I believe Rupert really believed that the milkman was a fairy; for a second he seemed to accept him as having vanished.
Then calling something to me which somehow took no hold on my mind, he darted after the mystic milkman, and disappeared himself into the area.
I waited for at least five minutes, leaning against a lamp-post in the lonely street.Then the milkman came swinging up the steps without his can and hurried off clattering down the road.Two or three minutes more elapsed, and then Rupert came bounding up also, his face pale but yet laughing; a not uncommon contradiction in him, denoting excitement.
"My friend," he said, rubbing his hands, "so much for all your scepticism.So much for your philistine ignorance of the possibilities of a romantic city.Two and sixpence, my boy, is the form in which your prosaic good nature will have to express itself.""What?" I said incredulously, "do you mean to say that you really did find anything the matter with the poor milkman?"His face fell.
"Oh, the milkman," he said, with a miserable affectation at having misunderstood me."No, I--I--didn't exactly bring anything home to the milkman himself, I--""What did the milkman say and do?" I said, with inexorable sternness.
"Well, to tell the truth," said Rupert, shifting restlessly from one foot to another, "the milkman himself, as far as merely physical appearances went, just said, `Milk, Miss,' and handed in the can.That is not to say, of course, that he did not make some secret sign or some--"I broke into a violent laugh."You idiot," I said, "why don't you own yourself wrong and have done with it? Why should he have made a secret sign any more than any one else? You own he said nothing and did nothing worth mentioning.You own that, don't you?"His face grew grave.
"Well, since you ask me, I must admit that I do.It is possible that the milkman did not betray himself.It is even possible that I was wrong about him.""Then come along with you," I said, with a certain amicable anger, "and remember that you owe me half a crown.""As to that, I differ from you," said Rupert coolly."The milkman's remarks may have been quite innocent.Even the milkman may have been.But I do not owe you half a crown.For the terms of the bet were, I think, as follows, as I propounded them, that wherever that milkman came to a real stop I should find out something curious.""Well?" I said.
"Well," he answered, "I jolly well have.You just come with me,"and before I could speak he had turned tail once more and whisked through the blue dark into the moat or basement of the house.Ifollowed almost before I made any decision.
When we got down into the area I felt indescribably foolish literally, as the saying is, in a hole.There was nothing but a closed door, shuttered windows, the steps down which we had come, the ridiculous well in which I found myself, and the ridiculous man who had brought me there, and who stood there with dancing eyes.I was just about to turn back when Rupert caught me by the elbow.
