The Case of the Ward Lane Tabernacle | Page 9

are I'll give you five pounds if you'll bring Mr. Martin Hewitt here. His
office is 25 Portsmouth Street, Strand. Or the same if you'll bring the
police." And the voice was that of Mrs. Mallett.
Hewitt turned to the woman who had opened the door, and who now
stood, much frightened, in the corner beside him. "Come," he said,
"your keys, quick, and don't offer to stir, or I'll have you brought back
and taken to the station."
The woman gave him a bunch of keys without a word. Hewitt opened
the door at the end of the passage, and once more Mrs. Mallett stood
before him, prim and rigid as ever, except that her bonnet was sadly out
of shape and her mantle was torn. "Thank you, Mr. Hewitt," she said. "I
thought you'd come, though where I am I know no more than Adam.
Somebody shall smart severely for this. Why, and that woman--that
woman," she pointed contemptuously at the woman in the corner, who
was about two-thirds her height, "was going to search me--me!
Why----" Mrs. Mallett, blazing with suddenly revived indignation, took
a step forward and the woman vanished through the outer door.
"Come," Hewitt said, "no doubt you've been shamefully treated; but we
must be quiet for a little. First I will make quite sure that nobody else is
here, and then we'll get to your house."
Nobody was there. The rooms were dreary and mostly empty. The front
room, which was lighted by the holes in the shutters, had a rough
reading-desk and a table, with half a dozen wooden chairs. "This," said
Hewitt, "is no doubt the Tabernacle proper, and there is very little to
see in it. Come back now, Mrs. Mallett, to your house, aud we'll see if
some explanation of these things is not possible. I hope your snuff-box
is quite safe?"

Mrs. Mallett drew it from her pocket and exhibited it triumphantly. "I
told them they should never get it," she said, "and they saw I meant it,
and left off trying."
As they emerged in the street she said: "The first thing, of course, is to
bring the police into this place."
"No, I think we won't do that yet," Hewitt said. "In the first place the
case is one of assault and detention, and your remedy is by summons or
action; and then there are other things to speak of. We shall get a cab in
the High Street, and you shall tell me what has happened to you."
Mrs. Mallett's story was simple. The cab in which she left Hewitt's
office had travelled west, and was apparently making for the locality of
her sister's house; but the evening was dark, the fog increased greatly,
and she shut the windows aud took no particular notice of the streets
through which she was passing. Indeed with such a fog that would have
been impossible. She had a sort of undefined notion that some of the
streets were rather narrow and dirty, but she thought nothing of it, since
all cabmen are given to selecting unexpected routes. After a time,
however, the cab slowed, made a sharp turn, and pulled up. The door
was opened, and "Here you are mum," said the cabby. She did not
understand the sharp turn, and had a general feeling that the place could
not be her sister's, but as she alighted she found she had stepped
directly upon the threshold of a narrow door into which she was
immediately pulled by two persons inside. This, she was sure, must
have been the side-door in the stable-yard, through which Hewitt
himself had lately obtained entrance to the Tabernacle. Before she had
recovered from her surprise the door was shut behind her. She
struggled stoutly and screamed, but the place she was in was absolutely
dark; she was taken by surprise, and she found resistance useless. They
were men who held her, and the voice of the only one who spoke she
did not know. He demanded in firm and distinct tones that the "sacred
thing" should be given up, and that Mrs. Mallett should sign a paper
agreeing to prosecute nobody before she was allowed to go. She
however, as she asserted with her customary emphasis, was not the sort
of woman to give in to that. She resolutely declined to do anything of

the sort, and promised her captors, whoever they were, a full and legal
return for their behaviour. Then she became conscious that a woman
was somewhere present, and the man threatened that this woman
should search her. This threat Mrs. Mallett met as boldly as the others.
She should like to meet the woman who would dare attempt to search
her, she said. She defied anybody to attempt it. As for