Arriving in town I found that Miss Wickham had communicated with the police and had given an account of her visit to Hampstead, which closely corresponded with Quarles's idea. She had gone at that hour because she was anxious on Marsh's account, and it was the only time Seligmann could see her unless she waited another week. He was very kind, and had told her that Marsh was a scoundrel. He was attempting to make love to his wife, he declared, who laughed at him, and was quite in agreement with her husband when he said he would presently punish him by using the papers he held. He was expecting his wife to call for him that night in a taxi. She came, and killed him.
I am thankful to say that a fortnight after her arrest Mrs. Seligmann died.
THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF THE FLORENTINE CHEST
Only the other day, in a turning off Finsbury Pavement, there was demolished one of those anachronisms which used to be met with more frequently in London, an old house sandwiched in between immense blocks of buildings, a relic of the past holding its own against the commercial necessities and rush of modern civilization. It was connected with a very strange case Quarles and I had to deal with not long after the Seligmann affair.
The house looked absurdly small in the midst of its surroundings, but had once been a desirable residence, probably standing in its own gardens. Now it was almost flush with the street, dingy to look at, yet substantial. The door, set back in a porch, had two windows on either side of it, and there were four windows in the story above it. A brass plate on the door had engraved upon it "Mr. Portman," and it would appear that the bare fact of such a gentleman's existence was considered sufficient information to give to the world, since there was nothing to show what was his calling in life, nor what hours he was prepared to transact business.
As a matter of fact, he not only did his business in the old house, but lived there.
The room on the right of the hall was the living room. On the left was a small apartment, with windows of frosted glass, which was occupied during certain hours of the day by his only clerk, a cadaverous and unintellectual looking youth, whose chief work in life seemed to be the cutting of his initials into various parts of the cheap furniture which the room contained. Behind this office, but not connected with it, was Mr. Portman's business room, to which no one penetrated unless conducted thither by the cadaverous youth. Behind the living room, down a passage, was the kitchen, where Mrs. Eccles, the housekeeper, passed her days. A girl occasionally came in to help her, otherwise she was solely responsible for her master's comfort.