Samuel Boyd of Catchpole Square: A MysteryFarjeon, B. L. (Benjamin Leopold)
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Samuel Boyd of Catchpole Square: A Mystery
Farjeon, B. L. (Benjamin Leopold)
Detective and mystery stories; London (England) -- Fiction
"BISHOP STREET POLICE COURT.--A respectable woman, in great distress
of mind, accompanied by her little daughter, begged permission to make
a statement to the magistrate. It appears that her husband, Mr. Abel
Death, residing at 7, Draper's Mews, and employed as a clerk in the
office of Mr. Samuel Boyd of Catchpole Square, quite suddenly received
his discharge last Friday night, and came home greatly distressed by
the dismissal, as well as by pecuniary difficulties and by sickness in
his family. Later in the night, at about ten o'clock, he went out,
with the intention, as he stated, of making an appeal to his employer
to reinstate him. He did not return home, and from that night his wife
has heard nothing of him. Mrs. Death has been several times to
Catchpole Square, in the hope of obtaining some information from Mr.
Boyd, but as her knocking at the door has met with no response the
presumption is that that gentleman is out of town. The magistrate said
he was sure the press would give publicity to her husband's
disappearance, and there was no doubt, if the paragraphs in the papers
came to Mr. Boyd's notice, that he would write and tell her what he
knows of the movements of his late clerk. Compassion was aroused by
the evident ill health of the child, who appears to be suffering from
bronchial trouble, and whose efforts to restrain herself from
coughing, in order that the court should not be disturbed, were very
pitiable. The magistrate awarded the poor woman ten shillings from the
poor box, and she left the court in the deepest distress, her little
girl clinging to her gown."
Dick was surprised not to see his uncle in court. Inspector Robson had
promised to be present, and it was seldom that he broke a promise.
Ascribing his absence to official duties elsewhere, Dick parted with
Mrs. Death at the police court door, and promising to call and see her
next day, he wrote his paragraph for "The Little Busy Bee," and
leaving it at the office, went to Paradise Row to secure the room
which Mrs. Pond had to let.
It was that little woman's washing day, and, like the maid in the
nursery rhyme, she was hanging up clothes in her back yard. Hearing
the knock she hurried to the door, with her sleeves tucked up to her
shoulder, and wiping her hands on a towel. She wore an apron with a
bib, and tucked in the bib was the lady's handkerchief which Constable
Pond had picked up the previous night. She had been about to plunge it
into the washtub when she heard the knock, and she had hastily slipped
it in there as she hurried to the door.
"Constable Applebee tells me you have a room to let," said Dick.
"Yes, we have, sir," replied Mrs. Pond, her rosy face, which was of
the apple-dumpling order, glowing with delight, "and very good it is
of him to recommend us. I hope you won't mind the state I'm in. I'm
doing the washing." She said this very simply; there was no false
pride about Mrs. Pond.
"I shall ask you to do mine," said Dick, "if the room suits me."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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