The milkman, moreover, is not a merry man, hurrying on his rounds. He goes slowly and pessimistically, and likes to see the halfpenny before he tips his measure.
This, in a word, is a poor district, where no one would live if he could live elsewhere, with the Signal House stranded in the midst of it—a noble wreck on a barren, social shore. For the Signal House was once a family mansion; later it was described as a riverside residence, then as a quaint and interesting demesne. Finally its price fell with a crash, and an elderly lady of weak intellect was sent by her relations to live in it, with two servants, who were frequently to be met in Gravesend in the evening hours, at which time, it is to be presumed, the elderly lady of weak intellect was locked in the Signal House alone. But the house never had a ghost. Haunted houses very seldom have. The ghost was the mere invention of some kitchen-maid.
Haunted or not, the house stood empty for years, until suddenly a foreigner took it—a Russian banker, it was understood. A very nice, pleasant-spoken little gentleman this foreigner, who liked quiet and the river view. He was quite as broad as he was long, though he was not preposterously stout. There was nothing mysterious about him. He was well known in the City. He had merely mistaken an undesirable suburb for a desirable one, a very easy mistake for a foreigner to make; and he was delighted at the cheapness of the house, the greenness of the old lawn, the height of the grimy trees within the red brick wall.
He lived there all one summer, and the cement smoke got into his throat in the autumn and gave him asthma, for which complaint he had obviously been designed by Providence, for he had no neck. He used the Signal House occasionally from Saturday till Monday. Then he gave it up altogether, and tried to sell it. It stood empty for some years, while the Russian banker extended his business and lived virtuously elsewhere. Then he suddenly began using the house again as a house of recreation, and brought his foreign servants, and his foreign friends and their foreign servants, to stay from Saturday till Monday.
And all these persons behaved in an odd, Continental way, and played bowls on the lawn at the back of the house on Sundays. The neighbors could hear them but could see nothing, owing to the thickness of the grimy trees and the height of the old brick wall. But no one worried much about the Signal House; for they were a busy people who lived all around, and had to earn their living, in addition to the steady and persistent assuagement of a thirst begotten of cement dust and the pungent smell of bone manure. One or two local amateurs had made sure of the fact that there was nothing in the house that would repay a burglarious investigation, which, added to the fact that the police station is only a few doors off, tended to allay a natural curiosity as to the foreign gentleman’s possessions.
When he came he drove in a close cab from Gravesend Station, and usually told the cabman when his services would again be required. He came thus with three friends one summer afternoon, some years ago, and came without luggage. The servants, who followed in a second cab, carried some parcels, presumably of refreshments. These grave gentlemen were, it appeared, about to enjoy a picnic at the Signal House—possibly a tea-picnic in the Russian fashion.
The afternoon was fine, and the gentlemen walked in the garden at the back of the house. They were walking thus when another cab stopped at the closed iron gate, and the banker hurried, as fast as his build would allow, to open the side door and admit a seafaring man, who seemed to know his bearings.
“Well, mister,” he said, in a Northern voice, “another of your little jobs?”
The two men shook hands, and the banker paid the cabman. When the vehicle had gone the host turned to his guest and replied to the question.
“Yes, my fren’,” he said, “another of my little jobs. I hope you are well, Captain Cable?”
But Captain Cable was not a man to waste words over the social conventions. He was obviously well—as well as a hard, seafaring life will make a man who lives simply and works hard. He was a short man, with a red face washed very clean, and very well shaven, except for a little piece of beard left fantastically at the base of his chin. His eyes were blue and bright, like gimlets. He may have had a soft heart, but it was certainly hidden beneath a hard exterior. He wore a thick coat of blue pilot-cloth, not because the July day was cold, but because it was his best coat. His hat was carefully brushed and of hard, black felt. It had perhaps been the height of fashion in Sunderland five years earlier. He wore no gloves—Captain Cable drew the line there. As for the rest, he had put on that which he called his shore-going rig.
“And yourself?” he answered, mechanically.
“I am very well, thank you,” replied the polite banker, who, it will have been perceived, was nameless to Captain Cable, as he is to the reader. The truth being that his name was so absurdly and egregiously Russian that the plain English tongue never embarked on that sea of consonants. “It is an affair, as usual. My friends are here to meet you, but I think they do not speak English, except your colleague, the other captain, who speaks a little—a very little.”
As he spoke he led the way to the garden, where three gentlemen were awaiting them.
“This is Captain Cable,” he said, and the
