Devlin the Barber

The manner in which I became intimately associated with a fearful mystery with which not only all London but all England was ringing, and the strange, inexplicable Being whom the course of events brought to my knowledge, are so startling and wonderful, that I have grown to believe that by no effort of the imagination, however wild and bewildering the labyrinths into which it may lead a man, can the actual realism of our everyday life be outrivalled. What I am about to narrate is absolutely true--somewhat of an unnecessary statement, for the reason that human fancy could never have invented it. To a person unfamiliar with the wondrous life of a great city like London the story may appear impossible, but there are thousands of men and women who will immediately recognise in it features with which they became acquainted through the columns of the newspapers. I venture to say that the leading incident by which one morning--it was but yesterday--the great city was thrilled and horrified can never be entirely effaced from their memories. Dark crimes and deeds of heroism, in which the incidents are pathetic or pitiful, draw even strangers into sympathetic relation with each other. These events come home to us, as it were. What happened to one whose face we have never seen, whose hand we have never grasped, may happen to us who move in the same familiar grooves of humanity. Our hopes and fears, our joys and sorrows, our duties and temptations, are the same, because we are human; and it is this common tie of kinship that will cause the story of Devlin the Barber to be received with more than ordinary interest. Now, for the first time is revealed, in these pages, the strange manner in which the fearful mystery in which it was enshrouded was unravelled. The facts are as I shall relate them, and whatever the impression they may create, a shuddering curiosity must inevitably be aroused as to the nature and movements of the inscrutable Being through whose instrumentality I was made the agent in revealing what would otherwise have remained for ever hidden from human knowledge. By a few incredulous persons--I refer to those to whom nothing spiritual is demonstrable--the existence of this Being may be doubted; but none the less does he live and move among us this very day, pursuing his mission with a purpose and to an end which it is not in the power of mortal insight to fathom. It is not unlikely that some of my readers may have come unconsciously in contact with him within the last few hours.

CHAPTER I.

IN WHICH AN ACCOUNT IS GIVEN OF THE GOOD FORTUNE WHICH BEFELL MR. MELLADEW.

I am a struggling man--the phrase will be well understood, for the class to which I belong is a large one--and I reside in a neighbourhood which is neither very poor nor very fashionable. I have, of course, my friends and acquaintances, and among the most intimate of the former is a family of the name of Melladew.

Mr. Melladew is a reader in a printing-office in which a weekly newspaper is printed. Mrs. Melladew, with the assistance of one small servant, manages the home. They had two daughters, twins, eighteen years of age, named respectively Mary and Elizabeth. These girls were very beautiful, and were so much alike that they were frequently mistaken for one another. Mrs. Melladew has told me that when they were very young she was compelled to make some distinguishing mark in their dress to avoid confusion in her recognition of them, such as differently coloured socks or pieces of ribbon. The home of the Melladews was a happy one, and the sisters loved each other sincerely. They were both in outdoor employment, in the establishments of a general linendraper and a fashionable dressmaker. Mary was in the employment of the linendraper--Limbird's, in Regent Street. It is a firm of wide repute, and employs a great number of hands, some of whom sleep in the house. This was the case with Mary Melladew, who went to her work on Monday morning and did not return home until Saturday night. Elizabeth, or Lizzie as she was always called, was employed by Madame Michel, in Baker Street. She went to her work at half-past eight every morning and returned home at half-past seven every night.