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[NOW FIRST PUBLISHED. THE GREAT MILL-STREET MYSTERY. j By ADELINE SERGEANT. Author of Ii Jacobi's Wife," Roy's Repen- tance," Deveril's Diamond," II Under False Pretences" &c. LL JUGHTS PtESEPtVED,} PAnT I.—Vengeance# PROLOGUE. I. /) v- J i?. ¡'II I HE snow lay /1 ./7 _:#, deep upon the ground. P& L u £ w conntrj it to a I he i g h t 0 f j several feet. It C{8I gRtes ERZJI 8 hedges, it made W £ *l w. ■ traffic iiupossi-j fe| fu\ y"^0. B trains were lost ■ P»~2>/ak\ iff it and men 1 « were found IV?S-v>WXJ frozen on 'the lasFif X P' n/ highroads, but f in spite of all its devastating work it still looked pure and beautiful. Bat in tin town-in London, for example -its whiten^ was immediately sullied. Heaped up by tfce pavements in dirty mounds, trodden under foot by thousands of passing footsteps, it was soon nothing but an un- sightly tbing-an eyesore at which people grumbled, foul and agly as the lives of many of those who trod it under foot. And yet it had been beautiful when it fell. It would have been beautiful still if it had I fallen in some country lane, far from the I haunts of men. Suiely there is many a human soul which owes its vileness and its degradation to its surroundings as entirely as does the snow Row white it was once! What a black and ngly thing the baseness of man has made of IT I It is not the SHOW'S fault that it is foul. Even in Loudon there were spots where; the Inow stayed for some hours at least in unbroken fairness and whiteness. In some unfrequented streets it lay thick and smooth I until tbe middle of the day and if it were Jiot swepi away, or if a storm came on during the hours of the night, the place would look as peaceful and untrodden as the remotest country lane. Suoh had been the case with a j street in Whitechapel—-a lonely street,) ■careely ever used as a thoroughfare, because j>r an ugly turn at one end, from which a long, narrow, and, disreputable alley led into Mile End-road. Mill-street was neVer a very lively place. It consisted of two rows of tall, ugly, dilapidated buildings, some of i which were lodging-houses, some half- deserted warehouses. Three of the lodging- I houses had lately been bought up by an i eminent philanthropist, who had begun opera-, tions by turning out every creature in the rooms, from attio to cellar, and announcing his intention to transform the houses into! model dwellings for artisans. Unfurtunatotyj for his intentions, the plan had not succeeded.) The wretches who bad once lurked in the now empty dena made their way to! other quarters, and crowded the already crowded lockings in denser and more squalid portions oitlie city. Respectable workmen refused to live in Mill-street, because they said that they should lose their work if it were known in what part of London they resided. Mill-street bore too bad a character for them. So fur the present the houses stood almost empty, and gave a look of additional desolation to the desolate street. In the autumn, too, there had been an out- break of typhoid fever and diphtheria in federal of the remaining lodging-houses; and these outbreaks bad considerably thinned the uf tIn: place. was little trsflie 'in INI ill-street, aiid when the weather was bad its inhabitants preferred to keep with- in Ooir homes, miserable although these i might be, rath* p than cuceunter the iTem-: ing cold or the d, iviu;( rain outside. On onciiittt-r nij^ht hi Jahuary, however,) when the streets were paved with one almost j unbroken sheet of snow, and all sounds were hushed its if a white pall had been flung over the great city, two figures could have been. seen lingering in Mill-street as though theair Mere balmy and the time a night in June. A man and a boy—these were the Uvo who loitered in the bhadows cf the houses at dead of night. The boy was watching a house— one of the empty houses, apparently, for To Let" was scrawled in white chalk upon the windows and the door—and he seldom took his eye from the building. The man turned hi« head aside sometimes ai d seemed i.o listen but he did not watch the house. It j I would have needed move than a casual glance, I perhaps, to discover ti at he was blind yet such was the case. He was a singularly fine- looking man, with dark complexion and beard, broad shoulders, and spare sinewy limbs. His dress showed him to be a clergy- man but it was a strange hour for a clergy- man to be abroad unless he were summoned to the bedside of the sick, and he bore no appearance of being engaged on any charitable errand. lie stood in the shelter of an archway, and simply listened, while the boy who had acted as bis guide con- tinued to watch the opposite house, and occasionally to survey the street from end to end. The boy was rather a noticeable figure. fL was short of stature and deformed of limb, j One leg was shorter than the other, and b e, therefore, halted in his walk; the U ft shoulder was higher than the right, and his head looked too large for the frail body upon which it was set. He was dressed in coarse, poor clothing, but it was scrupulously clean and neat. His face was thin, white, and decidedly ugly, but it expressed shrewdness and determination. The forehead was puckered at present into anxious lines, and the little dark eyes were screwed up until they were almost invisible, as the lad gazed at the windows of the house on the other side of the street—now and again doubling his hands and applying them to his eyes like a telescope in order to see better, A light burned very feebly in one of the upper windows. The clergyman-spoke at length, in bushed and serious tones. You are sure he came thia way, Dick ? Sartain sure," said Dick. 11 Couldn't be mistaken in Steve's walk—besides, he wore the uniform;' "And you think he has come to look for J ess ?" I'm sure o' that, too. He was up all last night—a wrastlin' in prayer for her, he called it--a thing I never saw no meaein' in." II Dick. Dick 1" said the parson, reprov- ingly. Well, 't ain't the sort of thing yen ever told us to do," said Dick, in a rather dogged I tone and as far as ever I see anything of it, it seems to make a man as savage as u bear next day. Steve was in reg'lar black rage when I saw him this mornin', an' he showed me a big knife that he'd got, an' he says to me If I meet that man with Jess I shall do for him one of these daya, Dick. I know I shall, for he deserves a punishment." "I don't think he meant that/' said the clergyman. Maybe not," Dick answerei gloomiiy. .1 But all I know is that .we was- a, allilia'aloiig Mile End-road when a woman that we know I come up to us and says, says she 1 Your fine Jess has got her man back again, She's along of him in No, 20, MiU. street,' says she, I and you'd find 'em there together I if you went.' I see Steve turn as white as a sheet, I did, and put his band into his pocket as if he was feelin' for eojnetbink there." "When was this:" said the clergyman, eagerly. About nine o'clock, sir. He turns round, sharp to me then and says, You go home, Lick, I've got to carry the Lord's message to I a sick woman in Baldwin's-court/ says be, 'and I mayn't be home till morning.' And fvo been a dodgin' of him ever since, sir, till I met you." You did not tell me all this before, Dick I was so out o' breath, I couldn't get it out," said the bey, and I hurried you along, sir, so as to try and catch Stephen afore he came to No. 20." Why did he not get here earlier ? it H's me that have been a-dodgin' of him, you know, sir. He's made for Mill-street three times, and each time he's seen me and turned straight around again. I'm not so easy to bide as some folks," said Dick cheer- fully, to owing to the queer shape ef my bach and legs; but I followed him up as long as I could, and when he did give me the slip at last, I saw you, and I thought you'd coma alanr: and help." Certainly. Dick. It's a pity I can't see, isn't it? a sad pair of cripples, both of us. But I can't help hoping that Stephen has not come here at all, and that instead of being, a* you think, at No. 20, has gone straight home to his beel." I'm pretty eure that I saw him turn the corner o' Bald win's Market, said Dick, posi- tively, and it he came down that way he must come through Mill-street, and he'd never go past No. 20, Mill-street.. if he thought as how Jess was there. That there Jess—I wish she was hung on a gallows, I do-she's ha' been the ruin of Steve." Poor Stephen and poor Jes! sighed the parson. II I don't think she's a bad girl, Hick" Then I never saw a bad 'tin," said Dick, ¡ sharply; and for a moment or two the con- versation came to a pause. Then the clergy, man (whose name, by-the-byf, was 1'i'siicis Helmont) spoke again. "Who liven in No. 20, where you say Jess is to be found fo" Nobody, sir." Nobody It's a empty house. That's the qneer part of :t sir. Looh 'ere: you remember Mill-street well enough, don't yen r" I remember it well, It is a lost place, a God forsaken llare." There's a pickle factory in it, ain't there ? Well, nobody works in it new; it is always j mpty and mostly open, and they say tramps ,Iefp up there among a lot o' broken boxes. i and machinery and thing?. Weil, next to that is the thnoe bouses that got turned out a little while ago by the inspectors and Scrip- ture-readers and people, and they're ail empty toc. And Number Twenty is the one next to the pickle factory," And you think Jess is there ?" Blacli Sal said so, and the gentleman with her.' That is imposstble," said Mr. Ilelmont, 7-ith a sharp ring of pain in his voice. "The gentleman-if you are thinking of the one 1 mean The one you brought here. The artist chap that painted Jess's pioture." "He is abroad-in Egypt, I He cannot be here." Black Sal said it was him," muttered Diok. And it's him Steve wants to see. And if they gets together it's my belief there'll be murder done." "We must go upstairs at once:" said the clergyman hastily. Show me the place; we will go up together, If they are there, we may still be in time," But Dick held back. We can't do any good if Steve is up tbf,re already," he said, gruffly. But what I ol think is that hehasn tgone into the house at all —yet. fleti lurking about somewhere. A nd I thought that if yon could catoh him before be went into the house-, 'twould be a good thing, that's all." But what if he is there now t" II We should have heard him by this lime if he'd been there, said Diok, with a dark sug- gestiveness of tone which made the parson wince. Oh, if I'd but my eyes 1" he said to him- self, as the sense of his own powclessness made itself felt. If I could but see as well as hear Ah what was that ?" His quick car had caught the sound made by an opening window. It's a woman," said Dick, in the whisper of suppressed excitement. I see the shadders on the blind. The light is brighter in the room now there's a wfeite blind so one can sec—Look! 100), be cried, clutching at Mr. Helmon* •••'•h his long bony nngcr", and foi g-tting that tL> man whom be a'\<ressed was blind, look she" struggling and fighting with someone-are vlera two people or threes' One wants to get iu window and the other won't let him, that's what it it. Look out there! look out, mate, you'll fall!" II Lead me to the door; let me go in for God's sake cried the clergyman. "Don't hesitate, boy—rouse the neighbourhood: quick! quick! Help! Murder! Help. I say." lIe raised his voice in stentorian tones, hoping to brinp: succour to thoee in need; but the cry of Hl Murder'w»j a familiar one in atiiJ-street. It was raIsed. too ofterr by j drunken nick and "women reeling home from the public-house to excite much attention I now. No one stirred in the houses near no policeman w« in sight; no one came to aid. Dick broke away from Mr. Ilelmont's arm. I shall go np," he panted and darting! across the road he pushed open a door 'bich i had been left ajar, and hobbled as fast as his legs would carry him up the stairs. The parson. Francis Helmont, was left alone ir..the middle of the anowrcovered street. Above him wa* the sound of a sou/lie, of struggles, of cries, of blows but he could see and do nothing—he could onh; listen, What was going on he could but dimly guess. His position wpi a strange and terrible one. The gentleman of whom Dick had spoken as Jess's lover, the joan whom Stephen Kyre had vowed to punish/had once been Ilelmont's dearest friend. Helmont had tirmly believed, up to that moment, that this man was away in a foreign land, far out of his enemy's reach. But if Dick's informant had not been mis- taken—if Ilelmont's old friend George East- wood, the man who had wronged Stephen Eyre by taking away from him and ruining the woman that Eyre bad loved, were now in' that empty house with poor Jess Armstrong and Stephen Eyre; if Eyre's long-planaed vengeance were about to be fulfilled—then what could the blind man do ? lie could not see; be could sot act; he must wait until more help came. And in the meantime he redoubled his cries; and tp above his head the terrible, mysterious strife went on. Could Ilelmont have seen, he would at last have beheld the top window of that silent house pushed widely open, while two, or per- haps, three, persons, struggled violently together at the sill. There was an iron bar across) the centre. This was at last forcibly torn asunder, and then—then came the catas- trophe. One of the persons struggling—a man—lost his balance, and fell out. He clung for a moment or two to the window-sill, frantically straggling, but not calling for help. There was an instant's curious stillness. Then someone's hand— God's eye and that of the man himself only saw to whom that hand belonged—pushed his straining fingers from the window ledge. In another moment there was a horrible, sicken- ing thud, as the victim's body dropped help- lessly upon the snow-covered pavement underneath. And a strange cry, like that of a hunted animal or a child in pain, went up froo) the room in which that conflict for life or death bad taken place. Francis Ilelmont heard the sound of ihe fall. With outstretched bwds and groping feet he found his way to the warm, quivering body tha.t lay upon the ground. He could not cry for help his tongue seemed frozen to the roof of bis inouth. lie knelt down beside the man and felt fo, his face and bauds. Was he yet alive ? And was it his friend or not ? At first be could not tell. Presently the man's garb told him part of what he wanted to know. And also he found twisted round the Gngers of the gradually IItiffcnint: hand a tress of long and softly curling woman's hair. II. The noise had at last attracted the neigh- bours' attention, Windows were now opened, heads put Wrth; persons in every stage of dress and undress came pouring out of doors, even a policeman, in such cases often the last to arrive, appeared upon the scene, They tound a strange tight awaiting them. A dead man, whose dress proclaimed him an otlicer of the Salvation Army, lay on the pavement, and beside him, in the snow, knelt the bliild parsoii," as they had long ago nicknamed Francis Helmont, And no one else was near. There was no light in that upper window from which the dead man— well known to them as Stephen Eyre—had | fallen or been thrown. The house itself was quiet as the grave. The persons with whom he bad been struggling had entirely dis- | appeared. Who was it that had taken possession of that empty house and committed what was very like an act of murder, whether in self-defence or not ? Nobody could tell, The house was supposed to be empty a care- taker who lived at No. 18 took care of all three houses and she had not even been aroused, Where is the boy? The boy who brought me here," inqoired Mr. Helmont, who had risen from his stooping position beside poor Stephen Eyre's body, and was standing with rather a ghastly look upon his face against the wall of the house. The gaslight flickered oddly on the motley crowd around him; on the dead man's impassive face on the snow that had lately been so white and was now fouled &nd besmirched by trampling feet. Francis flel- mont could not behold the tcene with his bodily eyes; suid yet he knew the place so' well, the people so well, he could picture to himself so vividly the faces and figures with their surroundings that it seemed to him for a moment almost as though he looked upon them in reality. He had to press bis eyes with his hand for a moment before he could dispel. the illusion and remember that he only dreamed and could not see. He was well known to most of the persons present, and his question met with a quick response. "Whit boy was it, sir r" "Richard >'y»e, Stephen Eyre's brother." The little hunchbaok ? lie ain't here- maybe he's in the house." "II e left me to go upstairs. Has anyone gone up ?" I'm going up now, Mr. Helmont, sir," said a voice, which the olergyman recognised at once as that of a policeman with whom be was well acquainted. My mate's gone up already. There must be somebody up there, I take it there wa3 a scuffle P" Yes, there seemed to be some sort of a struggle but you kcow I CAncot see, so I have no evidence to give." All right, sir, I dare say we shall secure the parties upstair*, and they can teil their owa story. Will you come up with mfl, Mt F' i' Helmont assented. In spite of his blind- ness (or, perhaps, because of it), he was a power in the neighbourhood, and he felt it possible that he might be of use. So he laid his hand on the policeman's arm and entered with him at the door of No. 20. They went up the first and the second flight of creaking stairs. All was in darkness; all was silent save for the sounds that they them- selves and their companions made. They went up the third flight. Here they met the men wbo had previously entered, and who were now standing doubtfully at the door of a room, which seemed to be in great confusion, Clouds of dust stm hung about it, and the floor was covered with debris of various kinds. The floor of the room above has given way, that's what it is," said one of the policemen, turning the light of his hintern full upon the reeking masses of broken wood and plaster, and if there was anybody in that room, it's pretty certain that they must have come to grief." .1 The room above is the one from which the man fell, 1 suppose," said Helmont, quickly. It seems like it, sir." You have been into it?" It was quite empty," said one of the men, rather reluctantly. We could see every corner of it. Nobody there, and a yawning chasm in the middle of the floor. The person that pushed Stephen Eyre out o' window, if there was such a person, has gone through— that seems pretty clear." Yielding to Ilelmont's representation, they I all tramped upstairs again, and looked in at the door of the room, from the window of which Stephen Eyr) had been precipitated. It was so evidently unsafe to enter that the men looked at it from the door without oroSf- ing the threshold, and it certainly seemed at first as if it contained no place in which mau, j woman, or child could take refuge. But at last a man pointed out what looked like a tiny cupboat,d, in the corner furthest away from the door, and suggested vaguely that it might lead somewhere." Whereupon a shrill- | voiced boy who had stolen in with theexplor- ing party sboutod out that "it did; there were steps from that there door on to the j roof." And the policemen looked at each. other significantly. This, then, w.'is the mode of escape chosen by the mysterious person or persons who bad caused the death of Stephen Eyre. There was a little hesitation, howcver, before the steps to the roof were reached, j 'I he floor was so manifestly unsafe that a valiant, but burly, policeman might well bang back before skirting that uncomfortable- looking hole in the middle. But at last the exploit was performed, and a ladder Wail pro- cured and laid across the rent and shaking boards, so that they could be traversed in safety while the search for the fugitives was made. But all soarcli proved in vain. The little door did, indeed, open upon a steep and narrow stair, from which the Hat roof with its stacks of chimneys, was attainable; but here there was no trace of any living person to be seen, The snow, however, baa been swept away to the sides of the roof—a sure sign thatj somebody had been at work there that day,; and in the open space thus left no trace of footsteps was to be found. The rataral infe- rence was that the persona had made their way into one of the adjoining bouses, and these had, therefore, to be examined by the police. i The house on the one hand proved to be quite empty. The caretaker lived in No. It), with which there was no communication with the other houses, but from 19 to 20 it was j very er.sy to pa* No trace of recent occu- pation could, however, be discovered in it, j On the other sidn the building—formerly factory—was les easy to search, but, as was tbe case with No. 19, it could quite well be

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COT THS PAPER AT THE TOP AND PLACE THE SECOND INSIDE THE FIRST HALF

>"•) | entered from a trap-doo.. in the roof. Oil this building the hopes of the police wero fixed, as it was a well-known sleeping-place and rendezvous for tramps and people of bad character, but their hopes were again destined to disappointment. They found several persons in the house, bat these dic{ not look as if anything had disturbed them for hours. The only man who was a stranger to the police was moaning and babbling in tb4 delirium of fever; and Jess Armstrong was nowhere to be found, Her little child was oertainlv to be seen—in the care of an oltl woman who was known to be friendly with Jess; but there was no trace of the mother; II I'm inclined to think, sir," said the Inspeo- tor, who had come upon the scene, and was in the habit of talking confidentially to Hel- mont, that the notion of that boy Diok'r, that the young woman Armstrong and hot lover were up here, wae all a mistake. Eyre must have blundered into some thieves' trap, and they tried to master him his fall out of the window may have been accidental." What has become of them, then? I think we shall know better when the rubbish has been cleared out of that room below," said Inspector Day signifioantly. II Some men are at work there already. They say they ba- e heard a grosuirg-soineoue must have fallen when the floor went down. When we come to the injured person, who- ever it may be, we shall know more. Ilelmont could not tear himself away. It was agony to him to wait, in his darkness aud helpnessness, and to do nothing: to hear the strokes of the men's tools and the passing of their feet; and yet it would have been worse to depart. He had a deadly fear that underneath that mass of broken wood and plaster and accumulated dust tha body of his friend, George Eastwood, might be found, together with that of the woman whom George Eastwood had pro* fesaed to love. It was his ear that first dk* tinguished the repetition of the faint moaning; which some of the workmen had previously heard; and it was he who was first able to tell them who lay there. II Dick Eyre, the cripple," he said, « Yet, he was with me in the street, and rushed up. stairs when he heard the beginning of a souffle. lie will, perhaps, be able to tell ua who was here—if he is alive when we get him out." He waited while the men went on working with redoubled zest. It took them two OE three hours to get to the buried lad, for th« fallen ceiling, rafters, and furniture had formed a mass of debris which was exceedingly difficult to move, and much care had to be exercised lest greater injuries should yet unwittingly be inflicted upon tfie sufferer or sufferers underneath. Ther. had also been delay in setting to work, and it was between five and six o'clock in the morning when at last the ornshed and mangled form of Richard Eyre was dis- encumbered, and laid in the ambulance whiei had been brought to Mill-street for his usev He was still alive, but unconsvious, and h< seemed to breathe with difficulty. He was carried at once to the nearest hospital, and someone was appointed to watch by him nigfcf and day in order to take down his earliest oowo-ious utterances. But nobody else was found beneath those heaped up fragments. No traoe of the presence of any man could be found. There were some scraps of woman's clothing, exit nothing which appertained to inaseulin* needs. And yet it was certain that somebody must have been in that upper room when the rotten door gave m. There must have beeq someone with whom Stephen Eyre had engaged in deadly struggle. Someone must have seen and known how he fell against the window, how the iron bar gave way, and how it came that he lost his footing on tho window-ledge. He had not been aloD6, Richard Eyre could surely clear up the mystery, Ihe feeling in Mill-street and its neiglu bourhood was very strong. Stephen Eyre's fanatical zeal had made bim respected, if not much beloved. And now that he was lying dead fresh stories came to light day by day concerning his fortitude, his patience, hirt iself-denial. Now it was a woman, her child in her arms, who came, sobbing pitifully, to say that she could no longer pay her rent now "Captain Eyre" was dead. Now it was a man who wanted to pay back what "ther Captain" had lent him to take his tools out of pawn. Now it was an old crone moaning out lamentations for the man who used to read and pray with her. Now a lick ohild, who was found weeping for the gaunt play- fellow whose stories had never failed to charm away her pain. On all aides Stephen Eyre was mourned; and the rumour, floating vaguely amongst his friends, that ho had vowed vengeance against a woman who had betrayed him, and had gone to Mill-street that night to execute it, gradually died away. For what reason soever, his adherents said, he had mounted to that top room at No. 20 thei reafon bad been good. He had never done anything but good to the soula and bqcbes of those amougst whom he had Jived, and preached and worked. In .hort. he was elevated to the rank of saintship, and would have been very much astonished by his own apotheosis if he could have risen from the grave to hear of it. The indignation caused by his death wail considerably heightened by the discovery of a point to which attention was called at the inquest. One of ihe dead man's hands waa found to be sevevely cut across the fingeri, ae if someone had cried to detach him from his huld upon tbe window-ledge by attacking him with a knife. Stains of blood upon tha window-ledge itself showed that this was the place where tbe assault, had taken place. If this* was the tsse, it was quite plain that no accident, but a cruel murder, had been the cause of Ste; hen Eyre's vntimely death. Tho jury were so much in pressed by thia piece of cvidenje that thej brought in a verdict of wilful u ti rder against some person or persons unkno.rn,