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Chemical Engineering Process
Simulation
This page intentionally left blank
Chemical Engineering
Process Simulation

Second Edition

Edited by

Dominic C. Y. Foo
Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering/Centre of
Excellence for Green Technologies, University of Nottingham Malaysia,
Semenyih, Selangor, Malaysia
Elsevier
Radarweg 29, PO Box 211, 1000 AE Amsterdam, Netherlands
The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, United Kingdom
50 Hampshire Street, 5th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States

Copyright Ó 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage
and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Details on how to
seek permission, further information about the Publisher’s permissions policies and our
arrangements with organizations such as the Copyright Clearance Center and the Copyright
Licensing Agency, can be found at our website: www.elsevier.com/permissions.

This book and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by
the Publisher (other than as may be noted herein).

Notices
Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and
experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional prac-
tices, or medical treatment may become necessary.

Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in
evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described
herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety
and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.

To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or
editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter
of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods,
products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein.

ISBN: 978-0-323-90168-0

For information on all Elsevier publications visit our website at

https://www.elsevier.com/books-and-journals

Publisher: Susan Dennis

Acquisitions Editor: Anita Koch
Editorial Project Manager: Judith Clarisse Punzalan
Production Project Manager: Paul Prasad Chandramohan
Cover Designer: Vicky Pearson Esser

Typeset by TNQ Technologies

 Dedication

The editor and author Dominic Foo would

like to dedicate this book to his wife
Cecilia and their kids Irene, Jessica, and
Helena. He would also like to dedicate
this book to his students who join his
process simulation classes at the
University of Nottingham Malaysia.
This page intentionally left blank
Contents

Contributors xvii
Acknowledgments xix
How to use this book xxi

Part I
Basics of process simulation
1. Introduction to process simulation
Dominic C.Y. Foo and Rafil Elyas
1.1 Process design and simulation 4
1.2 Historical perspective for process simulation 6
1.3 Basic architectures for commercial software 7
1.4 Basic algorithms for process simulation 9
1.4.1 Sequential modular approach 9
1.4.2 Equation-oriented approach 11
1.5 Degrees of freedom analysis 11
1.6 Incorporation of process synthesis model and sequential
modular approach 15
1.6.1 Ten good habits for process simulation 20
Exercises 26
References 27
Further reading 28

2. Registration of new components

Denny K.S. Ng, Chien Hwa Chong and
Nishanth Chemmangattuvalappil
2.1 Registration of hypothetical components 29
2.1.1 Hypothetical component registration with Aspen HYSYS 30
2.1.2 Hypothetical component registration with PRO/II 30
2.2 Registration of crude oil 32
Exercise 53
References 55

vii
viii Contents

3. Physical property estimation and phase behavior

for process simulation
Rafil Elyas
3.1 Chemical engineering processes 58
3.1.1 Inlet separator 58
3.1.2 Heat exchanger 59
3.1.3 Gas compressor 59
3.2 Thermodynamic processes 60
3.2.1 Characteristic thermodynamic relationships 61
3.2.2 Maxwell relationships 62
3.3 Equations of state 63
3.3.1 The ideal gas law (c.1834) 63
3.3.2 Corrections to the ideal gas law
(cubic equations of state) 63
3.4 Liquid volumes 67
3.5 Viscosity and other properties 69
3.6 Phase equilibria 69
3.6.1 Vapor phase correction 71
3.6.2 Liquid phase corrections 72
3.6.3 Bringing it all together 74
3.7 Flash calculations 75
3.7.1 “MESH” equations 76
3.7.2 Bubble point flash 77
3.7.3 Dew point flash 77
3.7.4 Two-phase pressureetemperature flash 78
3.7.5 Other flash routines 78
3.8 Phase diagrams 79
3.8.1 Pressureetemperature diagrams of pure components
and mixtures 79
3.8.2 Retrograde behavior 83
3.9 Conclusions 84
Exercises 84
References 86

4. Simulation of recycle streams

Dominic C.Y. Foo, Siewhui Chong
and Nishanth Chemmangattuvalappil
4.1 Types of recycle streams 87
4.2 Tips in handling recycle streams 88
4.2.1 Analyze the flowsheet 88
4.2.2 Provide estimates for recycle streams 90
4.2.3 Simplify the flowsheet 90
4.2.4 Avoid overspecifying mass balance 91
4.2.5 Check for trapped material 92
4.2.6 Increase number of iterations 92
 Contents ix

4.3 Recycle convergence and acceleration techniques 93

Exercises 99
References 100
Further reading 100

Part II
UniSim design
5. Basics of process simulation with UniSim design
Dominic C.Y. Foo
5.1 Example on n-octane production 103
5.2 Stage 1: basic simulation setup 104
5.3 Stage 2: modeling of reactor 108
5.4 Stage 3: modeling of separation unit 112
5.5 Stage 4: modeling of recycle system 113
5.5.1 Material recycle system 114
5.5.2 Energy recycle system 117
5.6 Conclusions 121
Exercises 121
References 124

6. Design and simulation of distillation processes

Nishanth Chemmangattuvalappil and Jia Wen Chong
6.1 Fundamentals of distillation calculations 125
6.2 Distillation column simulation 127
6.3 Debutanizer example 128
6.3.1 Setting up the problem 128
6.3.2 Operating pressure selection 130
6.3.3 Effect of pressure on relative volatility 130
6.3.4 Effect of pressure on utility selection 131
6.4 Preliminary design using short cut distillation 132
6.5 Rigorous distillation column design 133
6.6 Conclusions 137
Exercises 137
References 138

7. Modeling and optimization of separation and heating

medium systems for offshore platform
Dominic C.Y. Foo, Raymond E.H. Ooi and Pitchaimuthu Diban
7.1 Oil and gas processing facility for offshore platform 139
7.2 Modeling of oil and gas processing facilities 140
7.3 Process optimization of heating medium systems 145
7.4 Heat exchanger design consideration 149
Exercises 152
References 154
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x Contents

Part III
Symmetry
8. Basics of process simulation with Symmetry
Nurain Shakina Roslizam, Abdul Rahim Norman,
Shahrul Azman Abidin and Zulfan Adi Putra
8.1 Example on n-octane production 157
8.2 Establishing the thermodynamic model 157
8.3 Process modeling 159
8.3.1 Defining reactor inlet feed streams 160
8.3.2 Modeling of reactor 161
8.3.3 Modeling of separation units 163
8.3.4 Modeling of recycle systems 168
8.4 Conclusions 180
Exercises 180
Reference 180

9. Process modeling and analysis of a natural gas

dehydration process using tri-ethylene glycol
(TEG) via Symmetry
Siti Nurfaqihah Azhari, Noorhidayah Bt Hussein and
Zulfan Adi Putra
9.1 Introduction 181
9.2 Process description 182
9.3 Process simulation 183
9.3.1 Thermodynamic model and feed stream specification 183
9.3.2 Base case simulation 184
9.4 Dew point evaluation with Case Study tool 186
9.5 Process improvement with optimizer 191
9.6 Conclusions 199
Exercises 199
References 199

Part IV
SuperPro designer
10. Basics of batch process simulation with
SuperPro Designer
Dominic C.Y. Foo
10.1 Basic steps for batch process simulation 203
10.2 Case study on biochemical production 204
10.3 Basic simulation setup 204
 Contents xi

10.4 Setting for vessel procedure 206

10.4.1 Spray drying procedure 212
10.4.2 Process scheduling 214
10.4.3 Strategies for batch process debottlenecking 215
10.4.4 Economic evaluation 215
10.5 Conclusion 219
10.6 Further reading 219
Exercise 219
References 219

11. Modeling of citric acid production using

SuperPro Designer
Alexandros Koulouris
11.1 Introduction 221
11.2 Process description 223
11.2.1 Fermentation section 226
11.2.2 Isolation section 230
11.3 Model setup highlights 231
11.3.1 Material charges 231
11.3.2 Modeling the fermentation step 233
11.3.3 Modeling the cleaning operations 237
11.4 Scheduling setup 238
11.4.1 Operating in staggered mode 238
11.4.2 Operating with independent cycling 239
11.4.3 Calculating the minimum cycle time 239
11.5 Process simulation results 242
11.6 Process scheduling and debottlenecking 242
11.7 Process economics 245
11.7.1 Capital investment costs 245
11.7.2 Operating costs 246
11.7.3 Economic evaluation 247
11.8 Variability analysis 248
11.9 Conclusions 250
Exercises 251
Exercise 1: Decreasing the cycle time 251
Exercise 2: Increasing the batch size 251
Acknowledgments 252
References 252
Further reading 252

12. Design and optimization of wastewater treatment

plant (WWTP) for the poultry industry
Chien Hwa Chong, Rui Ma and Dominic C.Y. Foo
12.1 Introduction 253
12.2 Case study: poultry WWTP 254
xii Contents

12.3 Base case simulation model 256

12.4 Process optimization 262
12.5 Conclusion 266
12.6 Appendix A 266
12.7 Exercise 267
References 267

Part V
aspenONE engineering
13. Basics of process simulation with Aspen HYSYS
Nishanth Chemmangattuvalappil, Siewhui Chong and
Dominic C.Y. Foo
13.1 Example on n-octane production 271
Exercise 291
References 293

14. Process simulation and design for acetaldehyde

production
Lik Yin Ng, Jie Yi Goo, Rebecca Lim and Mijndert Van der Spek
14.1 Introduction 295
14.2 Process simulation 296
14.2.1 Simulation setup 296
14.2.2 Process flowsheeting 297
14.3 Process analysis/potential process enhancement 303
14.3.1 Energy recovery 304
14.3.2 Operating temperature of flash separator 306
14.4 Conclusion 307
Exercises 307
References 308

15. Dynamic simulation for process control with

Aspen HYSYS
Rafil Elyas
15.1 Introduction 310
15.2 Dynamic model overview 311
15.2.1 Steady-state and dynamic models 311
15.2.2 Dynamic model usage 311
15.3 Dynamic modeling concepts 312
15.3.1 Hold-up 312
15.3.2 Pressure-flow hydraulics 314
15.3.3 Dynamic model information requirements 317
15.3.4 Setting up a dynamic model in Aspen HYSYS 319
 Contents xiii

15.4 Constructing a dynamic model in HYSYS 322

15.4.1 Steady-state process modeling 323
15.4.2 Setting up dynamic parameters in the steady-state
environment 325
15.4.3 Transitioning to dynamics 333
15.5 Using a dynamic model for process control tuning 334
15.5.1 Single loop feedback control overview 335
15.5.2 Setting up the tuning scenario 336
15.5.3 Running the case studies 336
15.5.4 Other tuning strategies 338
15.6 Conclusion 340
Exercises 340
References 341
Further reading 341

16. Basics of process simulation with Aspen Plus

John Frederick D. Tapia
16.1 Example on n-octane production 343
16.1.1 Stage 1: simulation setup in properties environment 344
16.1.2 Stage 2: modeling of reactor in Simulation
environment 344
16.1.3 Stage 3: modeling of separator in Simulation
environment 348
16.1.4 Stage 4: modeling of recycling in the Simulation
environment 350
16.1.5 Stage 5: simulation of heat integration scheme 357
16.2 Summary of the n-octane simulation 359
References 360
Further readings 360

17. Design and evaluation of alternative processes for

the manufacturing of bio-jet fuel (BJF) intermediate
Bor-Yih Yu
17.1 Introduction 362
17.2 Overview 363
17.2.1 Components and physical properties 363
17.2.2 Reaction kinetics of the aldol condensation reaction 364
17.2.3 Economic evaluation and CO2 emission analysis 365
17.3 Process development 367
17.3.1 Scheme 1 367
17.3.2 Scheme 2 371
17.3.3 Scheme 3 373
17.3.4 Aldol condensation process 376
17.4 Process analysis 379
17.4.1 Economic evaluation 379
xiv Contents

17.4.2 CO2 emission analysis 381

17.4.3 Future prospects in BJF production 381
17.5 Conclusion 383
Exercise 383
Appendix 384
References 388

18. Production of diethyl carbonate from direct CO2

conversion
Bor-Yih Yu, Pei-Jhen Wu, Chang-Che Tsai and Shiang-Tai Lin
18.1 Introduction 391
18.2 Process overview 392
18.2.1 Physical properties 392
18.2.2 Reaction pathway and kinetic expression 397
18.2.3 Basis for evaluating the process economics and carbon
emission 399
18.3 The direct CO2-to-DEC process 402
18.3.1 Process development 402
18.3.2 Optimization 404
18.4 Techno-economic and CO2 emission analysis 407
18.4.1 Techno-economic analysis 407
18.4.2 CO2-emission analysis 410
18.5 Conclusions 412
Exercises 412
Appendix 413
A.1. Parameters for pure-component properties 413
A.2. Binary interaction parameters for the NRTL model 420
A.3. Parameters for Henry’s constant equation (temperature in  C) 422
Supplementary materials 423
References 423

19. Multiplatform optimization on unit operation and

process designs
Vincentius Surya Kurnia Adi
19.1 Introduction 425
19.2 Aspen Plus automation interface 427
19.3 COM objects in MATLAB 427
19.4 Aspen Simulation Workbook (ASW) 428
19.5 Multiplatform optimization 430
19.5.1 Case studyddichloro-methane solvent recovery
system 432
19.5.2 Sensitivity analysis with automation interface in
MATLAB 435
Exploring the Variety of Random
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The rest of the audience were easier to please. They saw no
indecency in the dresses. No doubt they saw what they had paid to
see, and that contented them.
Never had woman more of her own way than La Chicot after that
wonderful recovery of hers. She went where she liked, drank as
much as she liked, spent every sixpence of her liberal salary on her
own pleasure, and was held accountable by no one. Her husband
was a husband only in name. She saw more of Desrolles than of
Jack Chicot.
There was only one person who ever ventured to reprove or
expostulate with her, and that was the man who had saved her life,
at so large a sacrifice of time and care. George Gerard called upon
her now and then, and spoke to her plainly.
‘You have been drinking again,’ he would say, while they were
shaking hands.
‘I have had nothing since last night, when I took a glass of
champagne with my supper.’
‘You mean a bottle; and you have had half a bottle of brandy this
morning to correct the champagne.’
She no longer attempted to deny the impeachment.
‘Well, why should I not drink?’ she exclaimed, defiantly. ‘Who cares
what becomes of me?’
‘I care: I have saved your life once, against long odds. You owe me
something for that. But I cannot save you if you make up your mind
to drink yourself to death. Brandy is a slow suicide, but for a woman
of your temperament it’s as certain as prussic acid.’
Upon this La Chicot would dissolve in maudlin tears. It was a pitiful
sight, and wrung the student’s heart. He could have loved her so
well, would have tried so hard to save her, had it been possible. He
did not know how heartless a piece of beautiful clay she was. He put
down her errors to her husband’s neglect.
‘If she had been my wife, she might have been a very different
woman,’ he said to himself, not believing the innate depravity of
anything so absolutely beautiful as La Chicot.
He forgot how fair some poisonous weeds are, how beautiful the
scarlet berries of the nightshade look when they star the brown
autumn hedges.
So La Chicot went her way triumphantly. There was no danger to life
or limb for her in the new piece—no perilous ascent to the sky
borders. She drank as much brandy as she liked, and, so long as she
contrived to appear sober before the audience, Mr. Smolendo said
nothing.
‘I’m afraid she’ll drink herself into a dropsy, poor thing,’ he said
compassionately one day to a friend at the Garrick Club. ‘But I hope
she’ll last my time. A woman of her type could hardly be expected to
draw for more than three seasons, and La Chicot ought to hold out
for another year or so.’
‘After that, the hospital,’ said his friend.
Mr. Smolendo shrugged his shoulders.
‘I never trouble myself about the after-career of my artists,’ he
answered pleasantly.
 CHAPTER XV.
EDWARD CLARE DISCOVERS A LIKENESS.
‘Hazlehurst Rectory, February 22nd.—Dear Ned,—Do you remember
my saying, when Laura refused to have a proper wedding-gown,
that her marriage was altogether an ill-omened business? I told her
so, I told you so; in fact, I think I told everybody so; if it be not an
unpardonable exaggeration to call the handful of wretched dowdies
and frumps in such a place as Hazlehurst everybody. Well, I was
right. The marriage has been a complete fiasco. What do you think
of our poor Laura’s coming home from her honeymoon alone?
Without even so much as her husband’s portmanteau! She has shut
herself up in the Manor-house, where she lives the life of a female
anchorite, and is so reserved in her manner towards me, her oldest
friend, her all but sister, that even I do not know the cause of this
extraordinary state of affairs.
‘“My dear Celia, don’t ask me anything about it,” she said, when we
had kissed each other, and cried a little, and I had looked at her
collar and cuffs to see if she had brought a new style from Paris.
‘“My dearest, I must ask you,” I replied; “I don’t pretend to be more
than human, and I am burning with curiosity and suppressed
indignation. What does it all mean? Why have you challenged public
opinion by coming home alone? Have you and Mr. Treverton
quarrelled?”
‘“No,” she said, decisively; “and that is the last question about my
married life that I shall ever answer, Celia, so you need not ask me
any more.”
‘“Where did you part with him?” I asked, determined not to give
way. My unhappy friend was obstinately silent.
‘“Come and see me as often as you like, so long as you do not talk
to me of my husband,” she said a little later. “But if you insist upon
talking about him, I shall shut my door upon you.”
‘“I hear he has acted most generously with regard to the
settlements, so he cannot be altogether bad,” I said—for you know I
am not easily put down—but Laura was adamant. I could not extort
another word from her.
‘Perhaps I ought not to tell you this, Ned, knowing what I do about
your former affection for Laura; but I felt that I must open my heart
to somebody. Parents are so stupid that it’s impossible to tell them
things.
‘I can’t conceive what this poor girl is going to do with her life. He
has settled the whole estate upon her, papa says, and she is awfully
rich. But she is living like a hermit, and not spending more than her
own small income. She even talks of selling the carriage horses,
Tommy and Harry, or sending them back to the plough, though I
know she dotes upon them. If this is meanness, it is too awful. If
she has conscientious scruples about spending John Treverton’s
money, it is simply idiotic. Of the two, I could rather think my friend
a miser than an idiot.
‘And now, my dear Ned, as there is nothing else to tell you about the
dismalest place in the universe, I may as well say good-bye.—Your
loving sister,
‘Celia.’
‘P.S.—I hope you are writing a book of poems that will make the
Laureate burst with envy. I have no personal animosity to him; but
you are my brother, and, of course, your interest must be
paramount.’
This letter reached Edward Clare in his dingy lodgings, in a narrow
side street near the British Museum, lodgings so dingy that it would
have grieved the heart of his country-born and country-bred mother
to see her boy in such a den. But the apartments were quite dear
enough for his slender means. The world had not yet awakened to
the stupendous fact that a new poet had been born into it. Stupid
reviewers went on prosing about Tennyson, Browning, and
Swinburne, and the name of Clare was still unknown, even though it
had appeared pretty often at the foot of a neat triplet of verses
filling an odd page in a magazine.
‘I shall never win a name in the magazines,’ the young man told
himself. ‘It is worse than not writing at all. I shall rot unknown in my
garret, or die of hunger and opium, like that poor boy who perished
within a quarter of a mile of this dismal hole, unless I can get some
rich publisher to launch me properly.’
But in the meantime a man must live, and Edward was very glad to
get an occasional guinea or two from a magazine. The supplies from
home fell considerably below his requirements, though to send them
strained the father’s resources. The embryo Laureate liked to take
life pleasantly. He liked to dine at a popular restaurant, and to wash
down his dinner with good Rhine wine, or sound claret. He liked
good cigars. He could not wear cheap boots. He could do without
gloves at a pinch, but those he wore must be the best. When he was
in funds he preferred a hansom to pedestrianism. This, he told
himself, was the poetical temperament. Alfred de Musset was,
doubtless, just such a man. He could fancy Heine leading the same
kind of life in Paris, before disease had chained him to his bed.
That letter from Celia was like vitriol dropped into an open wound.
Edward had not forgiven Laura for accepting John Treverton, or the
estate that went with him. He hated John Treverton with a vigorous
hatred that would stand a great deal of wear and tear. He pondered
long over Celia’s letter, trying to discover the clue to the mystery. It
seemed to him tolerably clear. Mr. and Mrs. Treverton had married
with a deliberate understanding. Love between them there was
none, and they had been too honest to pretend an affection which
neither felt. They had agreed to marry and live apart, sharing the
dead man’s wealth, fulfilling the letter of the law, but not the spirit.
‘I call it sheer dishonesty,’ said Edward. ‘I wonder that Laura can
lend herself to such an underhand course.’
It was all very well to talk about John Treverton’s liberality in settling
the entire estate upon his wife. No doubt they had their private
understanding duly set forth in black and white. The husband was to
have his share of the fortune, and squander it how he pleased in
London or Paris, or any part of the globe that seemed best to him.
‘There never was such confounded luck,’ exclaimed Edward, angry
with Fate for having given this man so much and himself so little; ‘a
fellow who three months ago was a beggar.’
In his idle reverie he found himself thinking what he would have
done in John Treverton’s place, with, say, seven thousand a year at
his disposal.
‘I would have chambers in the Albany,’ he thought, ‘furnished on the
purest æsthetic principles. I’d keep a yacht at Cowes, and three or
four hunters at Melton Mowbray. I’d spend February and March in
the South, and April and May in Paris, where I should have a pied à
terre in the Champs Elysées. Yes, one could lead a very pleasant life,
as a bachelor, on seven thousand a year.’
Thus it will be seen that, although Mr. Clare had been seriously in
love with Miss Malcolm, it was the loss of Jasper Treverton’s money
which he felt most keenly, and it was the possession of that fortune
for which he envied John Treverton.
One afternoon in February, one of those rare afternoons on which
the winter sun glorifies the gloomy London streets, Mr. Clare called
at the office of a comic periodical, the editor of which had accepted
some of his lighter verses—society poems in the Praed and Locker
manner. Two or three of his contributions had been published within
the last month, and he came to the office with the pleasant
consciousness that there was a cheque due to him.
‘I shall treat myself to a careful little dinner at the Restaurant du
Pavillon,’ he told himself, ‘and a stall at the Prince of Wales’s to wind
up the evening.’
He was not a man of vicious tastes. It was not the aqua fortis of
vice, but the champagne of pleasure that he relished. He was too
fond of himself, too careful of his own well-being, to fling away
youth, health, and vigour in the sloughs and sewers of evil living. He
had a refined selfishness that was calculated to keep him pure of low
iniquities. He had no aspiration to scale mountain peaks, but he had
sufficient regard for himself to eschew gutters.
The cheque was ready for him, but when he had signed the formal
receipt the clerk told him the editor wanted to speak to him
presently, if he would be kind enough to wait a few minutes.
‘There’s a gentleman with him, but I don’t suppose he’ll be long,’
said the clerk, ‘if you don’t mind waiting.’
Mr. Clare did not mind, particularly. He sat down on an office stool,
and made himself a cigarette, while he thoughtfully planned his
dinner.
He was not going to be extravagant. A plate of bisque soup, a slice
of salmon en papilotte, a wing of chicken with mushrooms, an
omelette, half a bottle of St. Julien, and a glass of vermuth.
While he was musing pleasantly thus, the swinging inner door of the
office was dashed open, and a gentleman walked quickly through to
the open doorway that led into the street, with only a passing nod to
the clerk. Edward Clare just caught a glimpse of his face as he
turned to give that brief salutation.
‘Who’s that?’ he asked, starting up from his stool, and dropping the
half-made cigarette.
‘Mr. Chicot, the artist.’
‘Are you sure?’
The clerk grinned.
‘Pretty positive,’ he said. ‘He comes here every week, sometimes
twice a week. I ought to know him.’
Edward knew the name well. The slap-dash caricatures, more
Parisian in style than English, which adorned the middle page of the
weekly paper called ‘Folly as it Flies,’ were all signed ‘Chicot.’ The
dancer’s admirers, for the most part, gave her the credit of those
productions, an idea which Mr. Smolendo had taken care to
encourage. It was an advantage that his dancer should be thought a
woman of many accomplishments—a Sarah Bernhardt in a small
way.
Edward Clare was mystified. The face which he had seen turned
towards the clerk had presented a wondrous likeness of John
Treverton. If this man who called himself Chicot had been John
Treverton’s twin brother, the two could not have been more alike.
Edward was so impressed with this idea that, instead of waiting to
see his editor, he hurried out into the street, bent upon following Mr.
Chicot the artist. The office was in one of the narrow streets
northward of the Strand. If Chicot had turned to the left, he must be
by this time following the strong current of the Strand, which flows
westward at this hour, with its tide of human life, as regularly as the
river flows to the sea. If he had turned to the right, he was most
likely lost in the labyrinth between Drury Lane and Holborn. In either
case—three minutes having been wasted in surprise and
interrogation—there seemed little chance of catching him.
Edward turned to the right, and went towards Holborn. Accident
favoured him. At the corner of Long Acre he saw Chicot, the artist,
button-holed by an older man, of somewhat raffish aspect. That
Chicot was anxious to get away from the button-holer was obvious,
and before Edward could reach the corner he had done so, and was
off at a rapid pace westward. There would be no chance of
overtaking him, except by running; and to run in Long Acre would be
to make oneself unpleasantly conspicuous. There was no empty
hansom within sight. Edward looked round despairingly. There stood
the raffish man watching him, and looking as if he knew exactly
what Mr. Clare wanted.
Edward crossed the street, looked at the raffish man, and lingered,
half inclined to speak. The raffish man anticipated his desire.
‘I think you wanted my friend Chicot,’ he said, in a most insinuating
tone.
He had the accent of a gentleman, and in some wise the look of a
gentleman, though his degradation from that high estate was patent
to every eye. His tall hat, sponged and coaxed to a factitious polish,
was of an exploded shape; his coat was the coat of to-day; his stock
was twenty years old in style, and so frayed and greasy that it might
have been worn ever since it first came into fashion. The hawk’s eye,
the iron lines about the mouth and chin, were warnings to the man’s
fellow-creatures. Here was a man capable of anything—a being so
obviously at war with society as to be bound by no law, daunted by
no penalty.
Edward Clare dimly divined that the creature belonged to the
dangerous classes, but in his excellent opinion of his own cleverness
deemed himself strong enough to cope with half a dozen such seedy
sinners.
‘Well, yes, I did rather want to speak to him—er—about a literary
matter. Does he live far from here?’
‘Five minutes’ walk. Cibber Street, Leicester Square. I’ll take you
there if you like. I live in the same house.’
‘Ah, then you can tell me all about him. But it isn’t the pleasantest
thing to stand and talk in an east wind. Come in and take a glass of
something,’ suggested Edward, comprehending that this shabby-
genteel stranger must be plied with drink.
‘Ah,’ thought Mr. Desrolles, ‘he wants something of me. This liberality
is not motiveless.’
Tavern doors opened for them close at hand. They entered the
refined seclusion of a jug and bottle department, and each chose the
liquor he preferred—Edward sherry and soda water, the stranger a
glass of brandy, ‘short.’
‘Have you known Mr. Chicot long?’ asked Edward. ‘Don’t suppose I’m
actuated by impertinent curiosity. It’s a matter of business.’
‘Sir, I know when I am talking to a gentleman,’ replied Desrolles,
with a stately air. ‘I was a gentleman myself once, but it’s so long
ago that the world and I have forgotten it.’
He had emptied his glass by this time, and was gazing thoughtfully,
almost tearfully, at the bottom of it.
‘Take another,’ said Edward.
‘I think I will. These east winds are trying to a man of my age. Have
I known Jack Chicot long? Well, about a year and a half—a little less,
perhaps—but the time is of no moment, I know him well.’
And then Mr. Desrolles proceeded to give his new acquaintance
considerable information as to the outer life of Mr. and Mrs. Chicot.
He did not enter into the secrets of their domesticity, save to admit
that Madame was fonder of the brandy bottle—a lamentable
propensity in so fair a being—than she ought to be, and that Mr.
Chicot was not so fond of Madame as he might be.
‘Tired of her, I suppose?’ said Edward.
‘Precisely. A woman who drinks like a fish and swears like a trooper
is apt to pall upon a man, after some years of married life.’
‘Has this Chicot no other income than what he earns by his pencil?’
asked Edward.
‘Not a sou.’
‘He has not been flush of money lately—since the new year, for
instance?’
‘No.’
‘There has been no change in his way of life since then?’
‘Not the slightest—except, perhaps, that he has worked harder than
ever. The man is a prodigious worker. When first he came to London
he had an idea of succeeding as a painter. He used to be at his easel
as soon as it was light. But since the comic journals have taken him
up he has done nothing but draw on the wood. He is really a very
good creature. I haven’t a word to say against him.’
‘He is remarkably like a man I know,’ said Mr. Clare, musingly; ‘but of
course it can’t be the same. The husband of a French dancer. No,
that isn’t possible. I wish it were,’ he muttered to himself, with
clenched teeth.
‘Is he like some one you know?’ interrogated Desrolles.
‘Wonderfully like, so far as I could make out in the glimpse I got of
his face.’
‘Ah, those glimpses are sometimes deceptive. Is your friend residing
in London?’
‘I don’t know where he is just at present. When last I saw him he
was in the west of England.’
‘Ah, nice country that,’ said Desrolles, kindling with sudden
eagerness. ‘Somersetshire or Devonshire way, you mean, I suppose?’
‘I mean Devonshire.’
‘Charming county—delightful scenery!’
‘Very, for your Londoner, who runs down by express train to spend a
fortnight there. Not quite so lively for your son of the soil, who sees
himself doomed to rot in a God-forsaken hole like Hazlehurst, the
village I came from. What! you know the place!’ exclaimed Edward,
for the man had given a start that betokened surprised recognition
of the name.
‘I do know a village called Hazlehurst, but it’s in Wilts,’ the other
answered, coolly. ‘So the gentleman who resembles my friend Chicot
is a native of Devonshire, and a neighbour of yours?’
‘I didn’t say he was either,’ returned Edward, who did not want to be
catechised by a disreputable-looking stranger. ‘I said I had last seen
him at Hazlehurst. That’s all. And now, as I’ve an appointment at
five o’clock, I must wish you good afternoon.’
They both left the bar together, and went out into Long Acre,
whence the wintry sunshine had departed, giving place to that dull,
thick greyness which envelopes London at eventide, like a curtain.
To those who love the city, as Charles Lamb loved it, for instance,
there is something comfortable even in this all-enshrouding grey,
through which the lamps shine cheerfully, like friendly eyes.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t got my card case with me,’ said Desrolles, feeling
in his breast pocket.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ the other answered, curtly. ‘Good-day to you.’
And so they parted, Edward Clare walking swiftly away towards the
little French restaurant hard by St. Ann’s Church, where he meant to
solace himself with a comfortable dinner.
‘A cad!’ mused Desrolles, looking after him. ‘Provincial, and a cad!
Strange that he should come from Hazlehurst.’
Mr. Clare dined entirely to his own satisfaction, and with what he
considered a severe economy; for he contented himself with half a
bottle of claret, and took only one glass of green chartreuse after his
small cup of black coffee. The coffee made him bright and wakeful,
and he left the purlieus of St. Ann in excellent spirits. He had
changed his mind about the Prince of Wales’s. Instead of indulging
himself with a stall at that luxurious theatre, he would rough it and
go to the pit at the Prince Frederick, to see Mademoiselle Chicot. He
had been haunted by her name on the walls of London, but he had
never yet had the desire to see her. Now all at once his curiosity was
aroused. He went, and admired the dancer, as all the world admired
her. He was early enough to get a seat in the front row of the pit,
and from this position could survey the stalls, which were filled with
men, all declared worshippers of La Chicot. There was one squat
figure—a stout dark man, with sleek black hair, and colourless
Jewish face—which attracted Edward’s particular attention. This man
watched the dancer, from his seat at the end of a row, with an
expression that differed markedly from the vacuous admiration of
other countenances. In this man’s face, dull and weary as it was,
there was a look that told of passion held in reserve, of a purpose to
be pursued to the very end. A dangerous admirer for any woman,
most of all perilous for such a woman as La Chicot.
She saw him, and recognised him, as a familiar presence in an
unknown crowd. One brilliant flash of her dark eyes told as much as
this, and perhaps was a sufficient reward for Joseph Lemuel’s
devotion. A slow smile curled his thick lips, and lost itself in the folds
of his fat chin. He flung no bouquet to the dancer. He had no desire
to advertise his admiration. When the curtain fell upon the brilliant
tableau which ended the burlesque—a picture made up of handsome
women in dazzling dresses and eccentric attitudes, lighted by the
broad glare of a magnesium lamp—Edward left the pit and went
round to the narrow side street on which the stage-door opened. He
had an idea that the dancer’s husband would be waiting to escort
her home.
He waited himself in the dark chilly street for about a quarter of an
hour, and then, instead of Mr. Chicot, the artist, he saw his
acquaintance of the tavern stroll slowly to the stage-door, wrapped
in an ancient poncho, made of shaggy stuff, like the skin of a wild
beast, and smoking a gigantic cigar. This gentleman took up his
stand outside the stage-door, and waited patiently for about ten
minutes, while Edward Clare walked slowly up and down on the
opposite pavement, which was in profound shadow.
At last La Chicot came out, a tall, commanding figure in a black silk
gown, which swept the pavement, a sealskin jacket, and a little
round hat set jauntily on her dark hair.
She took Desrolles’ arm as if it were an accustomed thing for him to
escort her; and they went away together, she talking with
considerable animation, and as loud as a lady of the highest rank.
‘Curious,’ thought Edward. ‘Where is the husband all this time?’
The husband was spending his evening at a literary club, of
somewhat Bohemian character, where there was wit to cheer the
saddened soul, and where the nightly talk was of the wildest,
breathing ridicule that spared nothing between heaven and earth,
and a deep scorn of fools, and an honest contempt for formalism
and veneer of all kinds—for the art that follows the fashion of a day,
for the literature that is made to pattern. In such a circle Jack Chicot
found temporary oblivion. These riotous assemblies, this strong rush
of talk, were to him as the waters of Lethe.
 CHAPTER XVI.
SHALL IT BE ‘YES’ OR ‘NO’?
‘This looks as if he were serious, doesn’t it?’ asked La Chicot.
The question was addressed to Mr. Desrolles. The two were standing
side by side in the wintry dusk, in front of one of the windows that
looked into Cibber Street, contemplating the contents of a jewel-
case, which La Chicot held open.
Embedded in the white velvet lining there lay a collet necklace of
diamonds, each stone as big as a prize pea; such a necklace as
Desrolles could not remember to have seen, even in the jewellers’
windows, before which he had sometimes paused out of sheer
idleness, to contemplate such finery.
‘Serious!’ he echoed. ‘I told you from the first that Joseph Lemuel
was a prince.’
‘You don’t suppose I am going to keep it?’ said La Chicot.
‘I don’t suppose you, or any other woman, would send it back, if it
were a free gift,’ answered Desrolles.
‘It is not a free gift. It is to be mine if I consent to run away from my
husband and live in Paris as Mr. Lemuel’s mistress. I am to have a
villa at Passy, and fifteen hundred a year.’
‘Princely!’ exclaimed Desrolles.
‘And I am to leave Jack free to live his own life. Don’t you think he
would be glad?’
There was something almost tigerish in the look which emphasised
this question.
‘I think that it would not matter one jot to you whether he were glad
or sorry. He would make a row, I suppose, but you would be safe on
the other side of the Channel.’
‘He would get a divorce,’ said La Chicot. ‘Your English law breaks a
marriage as easily as it makes one. And then he would marry that
other woman.’
‘What other woman?’
‘I don’t know—but there is another. He owned as much the last time
we quarrelled.’
‘A divorce would make you a great lady. Joseph Lemuel would marry
you. The man is your slave; you could twist him round your little
finger. And then, instead of your little box at Passy, you might have a
mansion in the Champs Elysées, among the ambassadors. You would
go to the races in a four-in-hand. You might be the most fashionable
woman in Paris.’
‘And I began life washing dirty linen in the river at Auray, among a
lot of termagants who hated me because I was young and
handsome. I had not much pleasure in those days, my friend.’
‘Your Parisian life would be a change. You must be very tired of
London.’
‘Tired! But I detest it prettily, your city of narrow streets and dismal
Sundays.’
‘And you must have had enough dancing.’
‘I begin to be tired of it. Since my accident I have not the old spirit.’
She had the jewel-case in her hand still, and was turning it about,
admiring the brightness of the stones, which sparkled in the dim
light. Presently she went back to her low chair by the fire, and let
the case lie open in her lap, with the fire-glow shining on the gems,
until the pure white stones took all the colours of the rainbow.
‘I can fancy myself in a box at the opera, in a tight-fitting ruby velvet
dress, with no ornaments but this necklace and single diamonds for
eardrops,’ mused La Chicot. ‘I do not think there are many women in
Paris who would surpass me.’
‘Not one.’
‘And I should look on while other women danced for my
amusement,’ she pursued. ‘After all, the life of a stage dancer is a
poor thing at best. There are only so many rungs of the ladder
between me and a dancing girl at a fair. I am getting tired of it.’
‘You will be a good deal more tired when you are a few years older,’
said Desrolles.
‘At six-and-twenty one need not think of age.’
‘No; but at six-and-thirty age will think of you.’
‘I have asked for a week to consider his offer,’ said La Chicot. ‘This
day week I am to give him an answer, yes or no. If I keep the
diamonds, it will mean yes. If I send them back to him, it will mean
no.’
‘I can’t imagine any woman saying no to such a necklace as that,’
said Desrolles.
‘What is it worth, after all? Fifteen years ago a string of glass beads
bought in the market at Auray would have made me happier than
those diamonds can make me now.’
‘If you are going to moralise, I can’t follow you. I should say, at a
rough guess, those diamonds must be worth three thousand
pounds.’
‘They are to be taken or left,’ said La Chicot, in French, with her
careless shrug.
‘Where do you mean to keep them!’ inquired Desrolles. ‘If your
husband were to see them, there would be a row. You must not
leave them in his way.’
‘Pas si bête,’ replied La Chicot. ‘See here.’
She flung back the loose collar of her cashmere morning gown, and
clasped the necklace round her throat. Then she drew the collar
together again, and the diamonds were hidden.
‘I shall wear the necklace night and day till I make up my mind
whether to keep it or not,’ she said. ‘Where I go the diamonds will
go—nobody will see them—nobody will rob me of them while I am
alive. What is the matter?’ she asked suddenly, startled by a passing
distortion of Desrolles’ face.
‘Nothing. Only a spasm.’
‘I thought you were going to have a fit.’
‘I did feel queer for the moment. My old complaint.’
‘Ah, I thought as much. Have some brandy.’
Though La Chicot made light of Mr. Lemuel’s offering in her talk with
Desrolles, she was not the less impressed by it. After she had come
from the theatre that night she sat on the floor in her dingy
bedroom with a looking-glass in her hand, gloating over her
reflection with that string of jewels round her neck, turning her
swan-like throat every way to catch the rays of the candle, thinking
how glorious she would look with those shining stars upon her ivory
neck, thinking what a new and delightful life Joseph Lemuel’s wealth
could give her; a life of riot and dissipation, fine clothes, epicurean
dinners, late hours, and perfect idleness. She even thought of all the
famous restaurants in Paris where she would like to dine; fairy
palaces on the Boulevard, all lights, and gilding, and crimson velvet,
which she knew only from the outside; houses where vice was more
at home than virtue, and where a single cutlet in its paper frill cost
more than a poor man’s family dinner. She looked round the shabby
room, with its blackened ceiling and discoloured paper, on which the
damp had made ugly blotches; the tawdry curtains, the rickety deal
dressing-table disguised in dirty muslin and ragged Nottingham lace
—and the threadbare carpet. How miserable it all was! She and her
husband had once gone with the crowd to see the house of a
Parisian courtesan, who had died in the zenith of her days. She
remembered with what almost reverential feeling the mob had gazed
at the delicate satin draperies of boudoir and salon, the porcelain,
the tapestries, the antique lace, the tiny cabinet pictures which
shone like jewels on the satin walls. Vice so exalted was almost
virtue.
In the dining-room, paramount over all other objects, was enshrined
the portrait of the departed goddess, a medallion in a frame of
velvet and gold. La Chicot well remembered wondering to see so
little beauty in that celebrated face—a small oval face, grey eyes, a
nondescript nose, a wide mouth. Intelligence and a winning smile
were the only charms of that renowned beauty. Cosmetiques and
Wörth had done all the rest. But then the dead and gone courtesan
had been one of the cleverest women in France. La Chicot made no
allowance for that.
‘I am ten times handsomer,’ she told herself, ‘and yet I shall never
keep my own carriage.’
She had often brooded over the difference between her fate and
that of the woman whose house, and horses, and carriages, and lap
dogs, and jewels she had seen, the sale of which had made a nine
days’ wonder in Paris. She thought of that dead woman to-night as
she sat with the mirror in her hand admiring the diamonds and her
beauty, while Jack Chicot was doing his best to forget her in his
Bohemian club near the Strand. She remembered all the stories she
had heard of that extinguished luminary—her arrogance, her
extravagance, the abject slavery of her adorers, her triumphal
progress through life, scornful and admired.
It was not the virtuous who despised her, but she who despised the
virtuous. Honest women were the chosen mark for her ridicule.
People in Paris knew all the details of her brazen, infamous life. Very
few knew the history of her death-bed. But the priest who shrived
her and the nursing sister who watched her last hours could have
told a story to make even Frivolity’s hair stand on end.
‘It was a short life, but a merry one,’ thought La Chicot. ‘How well I
remember her the winter the lake in the Bois was frozen, and there
was skating by torchlight! She used to drive a sledge covered all
over with silver bells, and she used to skate dressed in dark red
velvet and sable. The crowd stood on one side to let her pass, as if
she had been an empress.’
Then her thoughts took another turn.
‘If I left him, he would divorce me and marry that other woman,’ she
said to herself. ‘Who is she, I wonder? Where did he see her? Not at
the theatre. He cares for no one there. I have watched him too
closely to be deceived in that.’
Then she half-filled a tumbler with brandy, and flavoured it with
water, in order to delude herself with the idea that she was drinking
brandy and water; and then, lapsing into a state of semi-intoxication
—a dreamy, half-consciousness, in which life, seen hazily, took a
brighter hue—she flung aside her mirror, and threw herself half-
dressed upon the bed.
Jack Chicot, who had taken to coming home long after midnight,
slept on the sofa in a little third room, where he worked. There was
not much chance of his seeing the jewels. He and his wife were as
nearly parted as two people could be, living in the same house.
La Chicot contemplated the diamonds, and abandoned herself to
much the same train of thought, for several nights; and now came
the last night of the week which Mr. Lemuel had allowed for
reflection. To-morrow she was to give him his answer.
He was waiting for her at the stage-door when she came out.
Desrolles, her usual escort, was not in attendance.
‘Zaïre, I have been thinking of you every hour since last we spoke
together,’ Joseph Lemuel began, delighted at finding her alone. ‘You
are as difficult to approach as a princess of the blood royal.’
‘Why should I hold myself cheaper than a princess?’ she asked,
insolently. ‘I am an honest woman.’
‘You are handsomer than any princess in Europe,’ he said. ‘But you
ought to compassionate an adorer who has waited so long and so
patiently. When am I to have your answer? Is it to be yes? You
cannot be so cruel as to say no. My lawyer has drawn up the deed of
settlement. I only wait your word to execute it.’
‘You are very generous,’ said La Chicot, scornfully, ‘or very obstinate.
If I run away with you and my husband gets a divorce, will you
marry me?’
‘Be faithful to me, and I will refuse you nothing.’ He went with her to
the door of her lodgings for the first time, pleading his cause all the
way, with such eloquence as he could command, which was not
much. He was a man who had found money all powerful to obtain
everything he wanted, and had seldom felt the need of words.
‘Send me a messenger you can trust at twelve o’clock to-morrow,
and if I do not send you back your diamonds——’
‘I shall know that your answer is yes. In that case you will find my
brougham waiting at a quarter-past seven o’clock to-morrow
evening, at the corner of this street, and I shall be in the brougham.
We will drive straight to Charing Cross, and start for Paris by the
mail. It will be too dark for any one to notice the carriage. What time
do you generally go to the theatre?’
‘At half-past seven.’
‘Then you will not be missed till you are well out of the way. There
will be no fuss, no scandal.’
‘There will be a tremendous fuss at the theatre,’ said La Chicot. ‘Who
is to take my place in the burlesque?’
‘Any one. What need you care? You will have done with burlesque
and the stage for ever.’
‘True,’ said La Chicot.
And then she remembered the Student’s Theatre in Paris, and how
her popularity had waned there. The same thing might happen here
in London, perhaps, after a year or two. Her audience would grow
tired of her. Already people in the theatre had begun to make
disagreeable remarks about the empty champagne bottles which
came out of her dressing-room. By-and-by, perhaps, they would be
impudent enough to call her a drunkard. She would be glad to have
done with them.
Yet, degraded as she was, there were depths of vice from which her
better instincts plucked her back; as if it were her good angel
clutching her garments to drag her from the edge of an abyss. She
had once loved her husband; nay, after her own manner, she loved
him still, and could not calmly contemplate leaving him. Her brain,
muddled by champagne and brandy, shaped all thoughts confusedly;
yet at her worst the idea of selling herself to this Jewish profligate
shocked and disgusted her. Her soul was swayed to and fro, to this
side and to that. She had no inclination to vice, but she would have
liked the wages of sin; for in this lower world the wages of sin meant
a villa at Passy, and a couple of carriages.
‘Good night,’ she said abruptly to her lover. ‘I must not be seen
talking to you. My husband may come home at any minute.’
‘I hear that he generally comes home in the middle of the night,’
said Mr. Lemuel.
‘What business is it of yours if he does?’ asked La Chicot, angrily.
‘Everything that concerns you is my business. When I, who love the
ground you walk upon, hear how you are neglected by your
husband, do you suppose the knowledge does not make me so
much the more determined to win you?’
‘Send your messenger for my answer to-morrow,’ said La Chicot, and
then she shut the door in his face.
‘I hate him,’ she muttered, when she was alone in the passage,
stamping her foot as if she had trodden upon a venomous insect.
She went upstairs, and again sat down, half undressed, upon the
floor, to look at the diamond necklace. She had a childish love of the
gems—a delight in looking at them—which differed very little from
her feelings when she was fifteen years younger, and longed for a
blue bead necklace exposed for sale in the quaint old market-place
at Auray.
‘I shall send them back to him to-morrow,’ she said to herself. ‘The
diamonds are beautiful—and I am getting tired of my life here, and I
know that Jack hates me—but that man is too horrible—and—I am
an honest woman.’
She flung herself on her knees beside the bed, in the attitude of
prayer, but not to pray. She had lost the habit of prayer soon after
she left her native province. She was sobbing passionately for the
loss of her husband’s love, with a dim consciousness that it was by
her own degradation she had forfeited his regard.
‘I’ve been a good wife to him,’ she murmured in broken syllables,
‘better than ever I was——’
And then speech lost itself in convulsive sobs, and she cried herself
to sleep.
 CHAPTER XVII.
MURDER.
Murder! an awful word under the most ordinary circumstances of
every-day life—an awful word even when spoken of an event that
happened long ago, or afar off. But what a word shouted in the dead
of night, through the close darkness of a sleeping house, thrilling the
ear of slumber, freezing the blood in the half-awakened sleepers’
veins.
Such a shout—repeated with passionate clamour—scared the
inhabitants of the Cibber Street lodging-house at three o’clock in the
winter morning, still dark as deepest night. Mrs. Rawber heard it in
her back bedroom on the ground floor. It penetrated confusedly—not
as a word, but as a sound of fear and dread—to the front kitchen,
where Mrs. Evitt, the landlady, slept on an ancient press bedstead,
which by day made believe to be a book-case. Lastly, Desrolles, who
seemed to have slept more heavily than the other two on that
particular night, came rushing out of his room to ask the meaning of
that hideous summons.
They all met on the first-floor landing, where Jack Chicot stood on
the threshold of his wife’s bedroom, with a candle in his hand, the
flickering flame making a patch of sickly yellow light amidst
surrounding gloom—a faint light in which Jack Chicot’s pallid
countenance looked like the face of a ghost.
‘What is the matter?’ Desrolles asked the two women,
simultaneously.
‘My wife has been murdered. My God, it is too awful! See—see——’
Chicot pointed with a trembling hand to a thin thread of crimson that
had crept along the dull grey carpet to the very threshold.
Shudderingly the others looked inside, as he held the candle towards
the bed, with white, averted face. There were hideous stains on the
counterpane, an awful figure lying in a heap among the bed-clothes,
a long loose coil of raven hair, curved like a snake round the rigid
form—a spectacle which not one of those who gazed upon it, spell-
bound, fascinated by the horror of the sight, could ever hope to
forget.
‘Murdered, and in my house!’ shrieked Mrs. Evitt, unconsciously
echoing the words of Lady Macbeth, on a similar occasion. ‘I shall
never let my first floor again. I’m a ruined woman. Seize him, ’old
’im tight,’ she cried, with sudden intensity. ‘It must ’ave been her
’usband done it. You was often a-quarrelling, you know you was.’
This fierce attack startled Jack Chicot. He turned upon the woman
with his ghastly face, a new horror in his eyes.
‘I kill her!’ he cried. ‘I never raised my hand against her in my life,
though she has tempted me many a time. I came into the house
three minutes ago. I should not have known anything, for when I
come in late I sleep in the little room, but I saw that——’ (he pointed
to the thin red streak which had crept across the threshold, and
under the door, to the carpetless landing outside), ‘and then I came
in and found her lying here, as you see her.’
‘Somebody ought to go for a policeman,’ suggested Desrolles.
‘I will,’ said Chicot.
He was the only person present in a condition to leave the house
and before any one could question his right to leave it he was gone.
They waited outside that awful chamber for a quarter of an hour, but
no policeman came, nor did Jack Chicot return.
‘I begin to think he has made a bolt of it,’ said Desrolles. ‘That looks
rather bad.’
‘Didn’t I tell you he’d done it?’ screamed the landlady. ‘I know he’d
got to hate her. I’ve seen it in his looks—and she has told me as
much, and cried over it, poor thing, when she’d taken a glass or two
more than was good for her. And you let him go, like a coward as
you was.’
‘My good Mrs. Evitt, you are getting abusive. I was not sent into the
world to arrest possible criminals. I am not a detective.’
‘But I’m a ruined woman!’ cried the outraged householder. ‘Who’s to
occupy my lodgings in future, I should like to know? The house’ll get
the name of being haunted. Here’s Mrs. Rawber even, that has been
with me close upon five year, will be wanting to go.’
‘I’ve had a turn,’ assented the tragic lady, ‘and I don’t feel that I can
lie down in my bed again downstairs. I’m afraid I may have to look
for other apartments.’
‘There,’ whimpered Mrs. Evitt, ‘didn’t I tell you I was a ruined
woman?’
Desrolles had gone into the front room, and was standing at an open
window watching for a policeman.
One of those guardians of the public peace came strolling along the
pavement presently, with as placid an air as if he had been an
inhabitant of Arcadia, to whom Desrolles shouted, ‘Come up here,
there’s been murder.’
The public guardian wheeled himself stiffly round and approached
the street door. He did not take the word murder in its positive
sense, but in its local significance, which meant a row, culminating in
a few bruises and a black eye or two. That actual murder had been
done, and that a dead woman was lying in the house, never entered
his mind. He opened the door and came upstairs with slow, creaking
footsteps, as if he had been making a ceremonious visit.
‘What’s the row?’ he asked curtly, when he came to the first floor
landing, and saw the two women standing there, Mrs. Evitt wrapped
in a waterproof, Mrs. Rawber in a yellow cotton dressing-gown of
antiquated fashion, both with scared faces and sparse, dishevelled
hair.
Mr. Desrolles was the coolest of the trio, but even his countenance
had a ghastly look in the light of the guttering candle which Jack
Chicot had set down on the little table outside the bedroom door.
They told him breathlessly what had happened.
‘Is she dead?’ he asked.
‘Go in and look,’ said Mrs. Evitt. ‘I dared not go a-nigh her.’
The policeman went in, lantern in hand, a monument of stolid calm,
amidst the terror of the scene. Little need to ask if she were dead.
That awful face upon the pillow, those glazed eyes with their wide
stare of horror, that gaping wound in the full white throat, from
which the life-blood had poured in a crimson stream across the
white counterpane, until it made a dark pool beside the bed, all told
their own tale.
‘She must have been dead for an hour or more,’ said the policeman,
touching the marble hand.
La Chicot’s hand and arm were flung above her head, as if she had
known what was coming, and had tried to clutch the bell-pull behind
her. The other hand was tightly clenched as in the last convulsion.
‘There’ll have to be an inquest,’ said the policeman, after he had
examined the window, and looked out to see if the room was easily
accessible from without. ‘Somebody had better go for a doctor. I’ll go
myself. There’s a surgeon at the corner of the next street. Who is
she, and how did it happen?’
Mrs. Evitt, in a torrent of words, told him all she knew, and all she
suspected. It was La Chicot’s husband that had done it, she was
sure.
‘Why?’ asked the policeman.
‘Who else should it be? It couldn’t be burglars. You saw yourself that
the window was fastened inside. She’d no valuables to tempt any
one. Light come light go was her motto, poor thing. Her money went
as fast as it came, and if it wasn’t him as did it, why haven’t he
come back?’
The policeman asked what she meant by this, whereupon Desrolles
told him of Mr. Chicot’s disappearance.
‘I must say that it looks fishy,’ concluded the second floor lodger. ‘I
don’t want to breathe a word against a man I like, but it looks fishy.
He went out twenty minutes ago to fetch a policeman, and he hasn’t
come back yet.’
‘No, nor never will,’ said Mrs. Rawber, who was sitting on the stairs
shivering, afraid to go back to her bedroom.
That ground floor bedroom of hers was a dismal place at the best of
times, overshadowed by the wall of the yard, and made dark and
damp by a protruding cistern, but how would it seem to her now
when the house was made horrible by murder?
‘Do you know what time it was when the husband gave the alarm?’
asked the policeman.
‘Not more than twenty minutes ago.’
‘Any of you got a watch?’
Desrolles shrugged his shoulders. Mrs. Evitt murmured something
about her poor husband’s watch which had been a good one in its
time, till one of the hands broke short off and the works went
wrong. Mrs. Rawber had a clock on her bedroom mantelpiece, and
had noticed the time when that awful cry awoke her, scared as she
was. It was ten minutes after three.
‘And now it wants twenty to four,’ said the sergeant, looking at his
watch. ‘If the husband did it, he must have done it a good hour
before he gave the alarm; at least that’s my opinion. We shall hear
what the doctor says. I’ll go and fetch him. Now, look here, my good
people: if you value your own characters, you’ll none of you attempt
to leave this house to-night. Your evidence will be wanted at the
inquest to-morrow, and the quieter and closer you keep yourselves
meanwhile the safer for you.’
‘I shall go back to bed,’ said Desrolles, ‘as I don’t see my way to
being of any use.’
‘That’s the best thing you can do,’ said the sergeant, approvingly;
‘and you, ma’am,’ he added, turning to Mrs. Rawber, ‘had better
follow the gentleman’s example.’
Mrs. Rawber felt as if her bedroom would be peopled with ghosts,
but did not like to give utterance to her fears.
‘I’ll go down and set a light to my parlour fire, and mix myself a
wine-glassful of something warm,’ she said. ‘I feel chilled to the
marrow of my bones.’
‘You, ma’am, had better wait up here till I come back with the
doctor,’ said the policeman.
Desrolles had returned to his room by this time. Mrs. Rawber went
downstairs with the policeman, glad of his company so far. He
waited politely while she struck a lucifer and lighted her candle, and
then he hurried off to find the doctor.
‘There’s company in a fire,’ mused Mrs. Rawber, as she groped for
wood and paper in the bottom of a cupboard not wholly innocent of
black beetles.
There was company in a glass of hot gin-and-water, too, by-and-by,
when the tiny kettle had been coaxed into a boil. Mrs. Rawber was a
temperate woman, but she liked what she called her ‘little comforts,’
and an occasional tumbler of gin-and-water was one of them.
‘It’s very hard upon me,’ she said to herself, thinking of the dreadful
deed that had been done upstairs; ‘the rooms suit me, and I’m used
to them; and yet I believe I shall have to go. I shall fancy the place
is haunted.’
She glanced round over her shoulder, fearful lest she should see La
Chicot in her awful beauty—a marble face, a blood-stained throat,
and glassy eyes regarding her with sightless stare.
‘I shall have to leave,’ thought Mrs. Rawber.
Meanwhile Mrs. Evitt was alone upstairs. She was a ghoul-like
woman, for whom horrors were not without a ghastly relish. She
liked to visit in the house of death, to sit beside the winter fire with a
batch of gossips, consuming tea and toast, dwelling on the details of
a last illness, or discussing the order of a funeral. She had a dreadful
courage that came of familiarity with death. She took up the candle,
and went in alone and unappalled to look at La Chicot.
‘How tight that hand is clenched!’ she said to herself; ‘I wonder
whether there’s anything in it?’
She forced back the stiffening fingers, and with the candle held
close, bent down to peer into the marble palm. In the hollow of that
dead hand she found a little tuft of iron-grey hair, which looked as if
it had been torn from a man’s head.
Mrs. Evitt drew the hairs from the dead hand, and with a careful
precision laid them in an old letter which she took from her pocket,
and folded up the letter into a neat little packet, which she returned
to the same calico receptacle for heterogeneous articles.
‘What a turn it has given me!’ she said to herself, stealing back to
the landing, her petticoats lifted, lest the hem of her garments
should touch that dreadful pool beside the bed.
The expression of her face had altered since she entered the room.
There was a new intelligence in her dull gray eyes. Her countenance
and bearing were as of one whose mind is charged with the weight
of an awful secret.
The surgeon came, an elderly man, who lived close at hand, and
was experienced in the ways of that doubtful section of society
which inhabited the neighborhood of Cibber Street. In his opinion La
Chicot had been dead three hours. It was now on the stroke of four.
One o’clock must, therefore, have been the time of the murder.
The police-sergeant came back in company with a man in plain
clothes, and these two made a careful examination of the premises
together, the result of which inspection went to show that it would
have been extremely difficult for any one to enter the house from