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Title:      A Silent Witness (1914)
Author:     R. Austin Freeman
* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *
eBook No.:  0301591.txt
Edition:    1
Language:   English
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Date first posted:          December 2003
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Title:      A Silent Witness (1914)
Author:     R. Austin Freeman





CHAPTER I

THE BEGINNING OF THE MYSTERY

THE history upon which I am now embarking abounds in incidents so amazing
that, as I look back on them, a something approaching to scepticism
contends with my vivid recollections and makes me feel almost apologetic
in laying them before the reader. Some of them indeed are so out of
character with the workaday life in which they happened that they will
appear almost incredible; but none is more fraught with mystery than the
experience that befell me on a certain September night in the last year
of my studentship and ushered in the rest of the astounding sequence.

It was past eleven o'clock when I let myself out of my lodgings at Gospel
Oak; a dark night, cloudy and warm and rather inclined to rain. But,
despite the rather unfavourable aspect of the weather, I turned my steps
away from the town, and walking briskly up the Highgate Road, presently
turned into Millfield Lane. This was my favourite walk and the pretty
winding lane, meandering so pleasantly from Lower Highgate to the heights
of Hampstead, was familiar to me under all its aspects.

On sweet summer mornings when the cuckoos called from the depths of Ken
Wood, when the path was spangled with golden sunlight, and saucy
squirrels played hide and seek in the shadows under the elms (though the
place was within earshot of Westminster and within sight of the dome of
St. Paul's); on winter days when the Heath wore its mantle of white and
the ring of gliding steel came up from the skaters on the pond below; on
August evenings, when I would come suddenly on sequestered lovers (to our
mutual embarrassment) and hurry by with ill-feigned unconsciousness. I
knew all its phases and loved them all. Even its name was delightful,
carrying the mind back to those more rustic days when the wits
foregathered at the Old Flask Tavern and John Constable tramped through
this very lane with his colour-box slung over his shoulder.

It was very dark after I had passed the lamp at the entrance to the lane.
Very silent and solitary too. Not a soul was stirring at this hour, for
the last of the lovers had long since gone home and the place was little
frequented even in the daytime. The elms brooded over the road, shrouding
it in shadows of palpable black, and their leaves whispered secretly in
the soft night breeze. But the darkness, the quiet and the solitude were
restful after the long hours of study and the glare of the printed page,
and I strolled on past the ghostly pond and the little thatched cottage,
now wrapped in silence and darkness, with a certain wistful regret that I
must soon look my last on them. For I had now passed all my examinations
but the final "Fellowship," and must soon be starting my professional
career in earnest.

Presently a light rain began to fall. Foreseeing that I should have to
curtail my walk, I stepped forward more briskly, and, passing between the
posts, entered the narrowest and most secluded part of the lane. But now
the rain suddenly increased, and a squall of wind drove it athwart the
path. I drew up in the shelter of one of the tall oak fences by which the
lane is here inclosed, and waited for the shower to pass. And as I stood
with my back to the fence, pensively filling my pipe, I became for the
first time sensible of the utter solitude of the place.

I looked about me and listened. The lane was darker here than elsewhere;
a mere trench between the high fences. I could dimly see the posts at the
entrance and a group of large elms over-shadowing them. In the other
direction, where the lane doubled sharply upon itself, was absolute, inky
blackness, save where a faint glimmer from the wet ground showed the
corner of the fence and a projecting stump or tree-root jutting out from
the corner and looking curiously like a human foot with the toes pointed
upward.

The rain fell steadily with a soft, continuous murmur; the leaves of the
elm-trees whispered together and answered the falling rain. The Scotch
pines above my head stirred in the breeze with a sound like the surge of
the distant sea. The voices of Nature, hushed and solemn, oblivious of
man like the voices of the wilderness; and over all and through all, a
profound, enveloping silence.

I drew up closer to the fence and shivered slightly, for the night was
growing chill. It seemed a little lighter now in the narrow, trench-like
lane; not that the sky was less murky but because the ground was now
flooded with water. The posts stood out less vaguely against the
back-ground of wet road, and the odd-looking stump by the corner was
almost distinct. And again it struck me as looking curiously like a
foot-a booted foot with the toe pointing upwards.

The chime of a church clock sounded across the Heath, a human voice,
this, penetrating the desolate silence. Then, after an interval, the
solemn boom of Big Ben came up faintly from the sleeping city.

Midnight! and time for me to go home. It was of no use to wait for the
rain to cease. This was no passing shower, but a steady drizzle that
might last till morning. I re-lit my pipe, turned up my collar, and
prepared to plunge into the rain. And as I stepped out, the queer-looking
stump caught my eye once more. It was singularly like a foot; and it was
odd, too, that I had never noticed it before in my many rambles through
the lane.

A sudden, childish curiosity impelled me to see what it really was before
I went, and the next moment I was striding sharply up the sodden path. Of
course, I expected the illusion to vanish as I approached. But it did
not. The resemblance increased as I drew nearer, and I hurried forward
with something more than curiosity.

It was a foot! I realized it with a shock while I was some paces away;
and, as I reached the corner, I came upon the body of a man lying in the
sharp turn of the path; and the limp, sprawling posture, with one leg
doubled under, told its tale at a glance.

I laid my finger on his wrist. It was clammy and cold, and not a vestige
of a pulse could I detect. I struck a wax match and held it to his face.
The eyes were wide-open and filmy, staring straight up into the reeking
sky. The dilated pupils were insensitive to the glare of the match, the
eyeballs insensitive to the touch of my finger.

Beyond all doubt the man was dead.

But how had he died? Had he simply fallen dead from some natural cause,
or had he been murdered? There was no obvious injury, and no sign of
blood. All that the momentary glimmer of the match showed was that his
clothes were shiny with the wet; a condition that might easily, in the
weak light, mask a considerable amount of bleeding.

When the match went out, I stood for some moments looking down on the
prostrate figure as it lay with the rain beating down on the upturned
face, professional interest contending with natural awe of the tragic
presence. The former prompted me to ascertain without delay the cause of
death; and, indeed, I was about to make a more thorough search for some
injury or wound when something whispered to me that it is not well to be
alone at midnight in a solitary place with a dead man,-perchance a
murdered man. Had there been any sign of life, my duty would have been
clear. As it was, I must act for the best with a due regard to my own
safety. And, reaching this conclusion, I turned away, with a last glance
at the motionless figure and set forth homeward at a rapid pace.

As I turned out of Millfield Lane into Highgate Rise I perceived a
policeman on the opposite side of the road standing under a tree, where
the light from a lamp fell on his shining tarpaulin cape. I crossed the
road, and, as he civilly touched his helmet, I said: "I am afraid there
is something wrong up the lane, Constable; I have just seen the body of a
man lying on the pathway."

The constable woke up very completely. "Do you mean a dead man, sir?" he
asked.

"Yes, he is undoubtedly dead," I replied.

"Whereabouts did you see the body?" enquired the constable.

"In the narrow part of the lane, just by the stables of Mansfield House."

"That's some distance from here," said the constable. "You had better
come with me and report at the station. You're sure the man was dead,
sir?"

"Yes, I have no doubt about it. I am a medical man," I added, with some
pride (I had been a medical man about three months, and the sensation was
still a novel one).

"Oh, are you, sir?" said the officer, with a glance at my half-fledged
countenance; "then, I suppose you examined the body?"

"Sufficiently to make sure that the man was dead, but I did not stay to
ascertain the cause of death."

"No, sir; quite so. We can find that out later."

As we talked, the constable swung along down the hill, without hurry, but
at a pace that gave me very ample exercise, and I caught his eye from
time to time, travelling over my person with obvious professional
interest. When we had nearly reached the bottom of the hill, there
appeared suddenly on the wet road ahead, a couple of figures in
waterproof capes. "Ha!" said the constable, "this is fortunate. Here is
the inspector and the sergeant. That will save us the walk to the
station."

He accosted the officers as they approached and briefly related what I
had told him. "You are sure the man was dead, sir?" said the inspector,
scrutinizing me narrowly; "but, there, we needn't stay here to discuss
that. You run down, Sergeant, and get a stretcher and bring it along as
quickly as you can. I must trouble you, sir, to come with me and show me
where the body is. Lend the gentleman your cape, sergeant; you can get
another at the station."

I accepted the stout cape thankfully, for the rain still fell with steady
persistency, and set forth with the inspector to retrace my steps. And as
we splashed along through the deep gloom of the lane, the officer plied
me with judicious questions. "How long did you think the man had been
dead?" he asked.

"Not long, I should think. The body was still quite limp."

"You didn't see any marks of violence?"

"No. There were no obvious injuries."

"Which way were you going when you came on the body?"

"The way we are going now, and, of course, I came straight back."

"Did you meet or see anyone in the lane?"

"Not a soul," I answered.

He considered my answers for some time, and then came the question that I
had been expecting. "How came you to be in the lane at this time of
night?"

"I was taking a walk," I replied, "as I do nearly every night. I usually
finish my evening's reading about eleven, and then I have some supper and
take a walk before going to bed, and I take my walk most commonly in
Millfield Lane. Some of your men must remember having met me."

This explanation seemed to satisfy him for he pursued the subject no
farther, and we trudged on for awhile in silence. At length, as we passed
through the posts into the narrow part of the lane, the inspector asked:
"We're nearly there, aren't we?"

"Yes," I replied: "the body is lying in the bend just ahead."

I peered into the darkness in search of the foot that had first attracted
my notice, but was not yet able to distinguish it. Nor, to my surprise,
could I make it out as we approached more nearly; and when we reached the
corner, I stopped short in utter amazement.

The body had vanished! "What's the matter?" asked the inspector. "I
thought this was the place you meant."

"So it is," I answered. "This is the place where the body was lying;
here, across the path, with one foot projecting round the corner. Someone
must have carried it away."

The inspector looked at me sharply for a moment. "Well, it isn't here
now," said he, "and if it has been taken away, it must have been taken
along towards Hampstead Lane. We'd better go and see." Without waiting
for a reply, he started off along the lane at a smart double and I
followed.

We pursued the windings of the lane until we emerged into the road by the
lodge gates, without discovering any traces of the missing corpse or
meeting any person, and then we turned back and retraced our steps; and
as we, once more, approached the crook in the lane where I had seen the
body, we heard a quick, measured tramp. "Here comes the sergeant with the
stretcher," observed the inspector; "and he might have saved himself the
trouble." Once more the officer glanced at me sharply, and this time with
unmistakable suspicion. "There's no body here, Robson," he said, as the
sergeant came up, accompanied by two constables carrying a stretcher. "It
seems to have disappeared."

"Disappeared!" exclaimed the sergeant, bestowing on me a look of extreme
disfavour; "that's a rum go, sir. How could it have disappeared?"

"Ah! that's the question!" said the inspector. "And another question is,
was it ever here? Are you prepared to make a sworn statement on the
subject, sir?"

"Certainly I am," I replied.

"Then," said the inspector, "we will take it that there was a body here.
Put down that stretcher. There is a gap in the fence farther along. We
will get through there and search the meadow."

The bearers stood the stretcher up against a tree and we all proceeded up
the lane to the place where the observant inspector had noticed the
opening in the fence. The gravel, though sodden with the wet, took but
the faintest impressions of the feet that trod it, and, though the
sergeant and the two constables threw the combined light of their
lanterns on the ground, we were only able to make out very faintly the
occasional traces of our own footsteps.

We scrutinized the break in the fence and the earth around with the
utmost minuteness, but could detect no sign of anyone having passed
through. The short turf of the meadow, on which I had seen sheep grazing
in the daytime, was not calculated to yield traces of anyone passing over
it, and no traces of any kind were discoverable. When we had searched the
meadow thoroughly and without result, we came back into the lane and
followed its devious course to the "kissing-gate" at the Hampstead Lane
entrance. And still there was no sign of anything unusual. True, there
were obscure foot-prints in the soft gravel by the turnstile, but they
told us nothing; we could not even be sure that they had not been made by
ourselves on our previous visit. In short, the net result of our
investigations was that the body had vanished and left no trace. "It's a
very extraordinary affair," said the inspector, in a tone of deep
discontent, as we walked back. "The body of a full-grown man isn't the
sort of thing you can put in your pocket and stroll off with without
being noticed, even at midnight. Are you perfectly sure the man was
really dead and not in a faint?"

"I feel no doubt whatever that he was dead," I replied.

"With all respect to you, sir," said the sergeant, "I think you must be
mistaken. I think the man must have been in a dead faint, and after you
came away, the rain must have revived him so that he was able to get up
and walk away."

"I don't think so," said I, though with less conviction; for, after all,
it was not absolutely impossible that I should have been mistaken, since
I had discovered no mortal injury, and the sergeant's suggestion was an
eminently reasonable one.

"What sized man was he?" the inspector asked. "That I couldn't say," I
answered. "It is not easy to judge the height of a man when he is lying
down and the light was excessively dim. But I should say he was not a
tall man and rather slight in build."

"Could you give us any description of him?"

"He was an elderly man, about sixty, I should think, and he appeared to
be a clergyman or a priest, for he wore a Roman collar with a narrow,
dark stripe up the front. He was clean shaven, and, I think, wore a
clerical suit of black. A tall hat was lying on the ground close by and a
walking-stick which looked like a malacca, but I couldn't see it very
well as he had fallen on it and most of it was hidden."

"And you saw all this by the light of one wax match," said the inspector.
"You made pretty good use of your eyes, sir."

"A man isn't much use in my profession if he doesn't," I replied, rather
stiffly.

"No, that's true," the inspector agreed. "Well, I must ask you to give us
the full particulars at the station, and we shall see if anything fresh
turns up. I'm sorry to keep you hanging about in the wet, but it can't be
helped."

"Of course it can't," said I, and we trudged on in silence until we
reached the station, which looked quite cheerful and homelike despite the
grim blue lamp above the doorway. "Well, Doctor," said the inspector,
when he had read over my statement and I had affixed my signature, "if
anything turns up, you'll hear from us. But I doubt if we shall hear
anything more of this. Dead or alive, the man seems to have vanished
completely. Perhaps the sergeant's right after all, and your dead man is
at this moment comfortably tucked up in bed. Good-night, Doctor, and
thank you for all the trouble you have taken."

By the time that I reached my lodgings I was tired out and miserably
cold; so cold that I was fain to brew myself a jorum of hot grog in my
shaving pot. As a natural result, I fell fast asleep as soon as I got to
bed and slept on until the autumn sunshine poured in through the slats of
the Venetian blind.

CHAPTER II

THE FINDING OF THE RELIQUARY

I AWOKE on the following morning to a dim consciousness of something
unusual, and, as my wits returned with the rapidity that is natural to
the young and healthy, the surprising events of the previous night
reconstituted themselves and once more set a-going the train of
speculation. Vividly I saw with my mind's eye the motionless figure lying
limp and inert with the pitiless rain beating down on it; the fixed
pupils, the insensitive eyeballs, the pulseless wrist and the sprawling
posture. And again I saw the streaming path, void of its dreadful burden,
the suspicious inspector, the incredulous sergeant; and the unanswerable
questions formulated themselves anew.

Had I, after all, mistaken a living man for a dead body? It was in the
highest degree improbable, and yet it was not impossible. Or had the body
been spirited away without leaving a trace? That also was highly
improbable and yet, not absolutely impossible. The two contending
improbabilities cancelled one another. Each was as unlikely as the other.

I turned the problem over again and again as I shaved and took my bath. I
pondered upon it over a late and leisurely breakfast. But no conclusion
emerged from these reflections. The man, living or dead, had been lying
motionless in the lane all the time that I was sheltering, and probably
for some time before. In the interval of my absence he had vanished.
These were actual facts despite the open incredulity of the police. How
he had come there, what had occasioned his death or insensibility, how he
had disappeared and whither he had gone; were questions to which no
answer seemed possible.

The fatigues of the previous night had left me somewhat indolent. There
was no occasion for me to go to the hospital to-day. It was vacation
time; the school was closed; the teaching staff were mostly away, and
there was little doing in the wards. I decided to take a holiday and
spend a quiet day rambling about the Heath, and, having formed this
resolution, I filled my pipe, slipped a sketch-book into my pocket, and
set forth.

Automatically my feet turned towards Millfield Lane. It was, as I have
said, my usual walk, and on this morning, with last night's recollections
fresh in my mind, it was natural that I should take my way thither.

Very different was the aspect of the lane this morning from that which I
had last looked upon. The gloom and desolation of the night had given
place to the golden sunshine of a lovely autumn day. The elms, clothed
already in the sober livery of the waning year, sighed with pensive
reminiscence of the summer that was gone; the ponds repeated the warm
blue of the sky; and the lane itself was a vista of flickering sunlight
and cool, reposeful shadow.

The narrow continuation beyond the posts was wrapped as always, in a
sombre shade, save where a gleam of yellow light streamed through a chink
between the boards of the fence. I made my way straight to the spot where
the body had lain and stooped over it, examining each pebble with the
closest scrutiny. But not a trace remained. The hard, gravelly soil
retained no impress either of the body or even of our footsteps; and as
for the stain of blood, if there had ever been any, it would have been
immediately removed by the falling rain, for the ground here had a quite
appreciable slope and must have been covered last night by a considerable
flowing stream.

I went on to the break in the fence--it was on the right-hand side of the
path--and was at once discouraged by the aspect of the ground; for even
our rough tramplings had left hardly a trace behind. After an aimless
walk across the meadow, now occupied by a flock of sheep, I returned to
the lane and walked slowly back past the place where I had sheltered from
the rain. And then it was that I discovered the first hint of any clue to
the mystery. I had retraced my steps some little distance past the spot
where I had seen the body, when my eye was attracted by a darkish streak
on the upper part of the high fence. It was quite faint and not at all
noticeable on the weather-stained oak, but it chanced to catch my eye and
I stopped to examine it. The fence which bore it was the opposite one to
that in which the break occurred, and, since I had sheltered under it,
the side of it which looked towards the lane must have been the lee side
and thus less exposed to the rain.

I looked at the stain attentively. It extended from the top of the
fence-which was about seven feet high--half-way to the ground, fading
away gradually in all directions. The colour was a dull brown, and the
appearance very much that of blood which had run down a wet surface. The
board which bore the stain was traversed by a vertical crack near one
edge, so that I was able to break off a small piece without much
difficulty; and on examining that portion of the detached piece which had
formed the side of the crack, I found it covered with a brownish-red,
shiny substance, which I felt little doubt was dried blood, here
protected by the crack and so less altered by contact with water.

Naturally, my next proceeding was to scrutinize very carefully the ground
immediately beneath the stain. At the foot of the fence, a few tussocks
of grass and clumps of undergrown weeds struggled for life in the deep
shade. The latter certainly had, on close examination, the appearance of
having been trodden on, though it was not very evident. But while I was
considering an undoubted bruise on the stalk of a little dead-nettle, my
eye caught the glint of some bright object among the leaves. I picked it
out eagerly and held it up to look at it; and a very curious object it
was; evidently an article of jewellery of some kind, but quite unlike
anything I had ever seen before. It appeared to be a little elongated,
gold case, with eight sides and terminating at either end in a blunt
octagonal pyramid with a tiny ring at its apex, so that it seemed to have
been part of a necklace. Of the eight flat sides, six were ornamented
with sunk quatre-foils, four on each side; the other two sides were plain
except that each had a row of letters engraved on it-A.M.D.G on one side,
and S.V.D.P on the other. There was no hall-mark and, as far as I could
see, no means of opening the little case. It seemed to have been
suspended by a thin silk cord, a portion of which remained attached to
one ring and showed a frayed end where it had broken or chafed through.

I wrapped the little object and the detached fragment of the fence in my
handkerchief (for I had broken off the latter with the idea of testing it
chemically for blood-pigment), and then resumed my investigations. The
appearances suggested that the body had been lifted over the fence, and
the question arose, What was on the other side? I listened attentively
for a few seconds, and then, hearing no sound of footsteps, I grasped the
top of the fence, gave a good spring and hoisting myself up, sat astride
and looked about me. The fence skirted the margin of a small lake much
overgrown with weeds, amidst which I could see a couple of waterhens
making off in alarm at my appearance, and beyond the lake rose the dark
mass of Ken Wood. The ground between the fence and the lake was covered
with high, reedy grass, which, immediately below my perch, bore very
distinct impressions of feet, and an equally distinct set of tracks led
away towards the wood-or from the wood to the fence; it was impossible to
say which. But in any case, as there were no other tracks, it was certain
that the person who made them had climbed over the fence. I dropped down
on the grass and, having examined the ground attentively without
discovering anything fresh, set off to follow the tracks.

For some distance they continued through high grass in which the
impressions were very distinct: then they entered the wood, and here
also, in the soft humus, lightly sprinkled with fallen leaves, the
footprints were deep and easy to follow. But presently they struck a
path, and, as they did not reappear on the farther side, it was evident
that the unknown person had proceeded along it. The path was an old one,
well made of hard gravel, and, where it passed through the deeper shade
of the wood, was covered with velvety moss and grey-green lichen; on
which I made out with some difficulty, the imprints of feet. But these
were no longer distinct; they did not form a connected track; nor was it
possible to distinguish them from the footprints of other persons who
might have passed along the path. Even these I soon lost where I had
halted irresolutely under a noble beech that rose from a fantastic coil
of roots, and was considering how, if at all, I should next proceed,
when, there appeared round a curve of the path a man in cord breeches and
gaiters, evidently a keeper. He touched his hat civilly and ventured to
enquire my business. "I am afraid I have no business here at all," I
replied, for I did not think it expedient to tell him what had brought me
into the wood. "I suppose I am trespassing."

"Well, sir, it is private property," he rejoined, "and being so near
London we have to be rather particular. Perhaps you would like me to show
you the way out on to the Heath."

I accepted his offer with many thanks for his courteous method of
ejecting a trespasser, and we walked together through the beautiful
woodland until the path terminated at a rustic turnstile. "That will be
your way, sir," he said, as he let me out, indicating a track that led
down to the Vale of Health.

I thanked him once more and then asked: "Is that a private house or does
it belong to your estate?" I pointed to a small house or large cottage
that stood within a fenced enclosure not far from the edge of the wood.

"That, sir," he replied, "was formerly a keeper's lodge. It is now let
for a short term to an artist gentleman who is making some pictures of
the Heath, but I expect it will be pulled down before long, as there is
some talk of the County Council taking over that piece of land to add to
the public grounds. Good-morning, sir," and the keeper, with a parting
salute, turned back into the wood.

As I took my way homeward by the Highgate Ponds I meditated on the
relation of my new discoveries to the mystery of the preceding night. It
was a strange affair, and sinister withal.

That the tracks led from the lane to the wood and not from the wood to
the lane, I felt firmly convinced; and equally so that the body of the
unknown priest or clergyman had undoubtedly been spirited away. But
whither had it been carried? Presumably to some sequestered spot in the
wood. And what better hiding-place could be found? There, buried in the
soft leaf-mould, it might lie undisturbed for centuries, covered only the
deeper as each succeeding autumn shed its russet burden on the unknown
grave.

And what, I wondered, was the connection between this mysterious tragedy
and the queer little object that I had picked up? Perhaps there was none.
Its presence at that particular spot might be nothing but a coincidence.
I took it from my handkerchief and examined it afresh. It was a very
curious object. As to its use or meaning, I could only form vague
surmises. Perhaps it was some kind of locket, enclosing a wisp of hair;
the hair perhaps of some dead child or wife or husband or even lover. It
was impossible to say. Of course, this question could be settled by
taking it to pieces, but I was loth to injure the pretty little bauble;
besides it was not mine. In fact, I felt that I ought to notify publicly
that I had found it, though the circumstances did not make this very
advisable. But if it had any connection with the tragedy, what was the
nature of that connection? Had it dropped from the dead man or from the
murderer--as I assumed the other man to be? Either was equally possible,
though the two possibilities had very different values.

Then the question arose as to what course I should pursue. Clearly it
would be my duty to inform the police of the mark on the fence and the
tracks through the grass. But should I hand over the mysterious trinket
to them? It seemed the correct thing to do, and yet there might after all
be no connection between it and the crime. In the end I left the matter
to be decided by the attitude of the police themselves.

I called at the station on my way home and furnished the inspector with
an account of my new discoveries; of which he made a careful note,
assuring me that the affair should be looked into. But his manner
expressed frank disbelief, and was even a trifle hostile; and his
emphatic request that I would abstain from mentioning the matter to
anyone left me in no doubt that he regarded both my communications as
wild delusions if not as a deliberate hoax. Consequently, though I
frequently reproached myself afterwards with the omission, I said nothing
about the trinket, and when I left the station I carried it in my pocket.

No communication on the subject of this mysterious affair ever reached me
from the police. That they did actually make some perfunctory
investigations, I learned later, as will appear in this narrative. But
they gave no publicity to the affair and they sought no further
information from me. For my own part, I could, naturally, never forget so
strange an experience; but time and the multitudinous interests of my
opening life tended to push it farther into the background of memory, and
there it might have remained for ever had not subsequent events drawn it
once more from ita obscurity.

CHAPTER III "WHO IS SYLVIA?"

THE winter session had commenced at the hospital, but at Hampstead the
month of October had set in with something like a return to summer. It is
true that the trees had lost something of their leafy opulence, and that
here and there, amidst the sober green, patches of russet and gold had
made their appearance, as if Nature's colour-orchestra were tuning up for
the final symphony. But, meanwhile, the sun shone brightly and with a
genial heat, and if, day by day, he fell farther from the zenith, there
was nothing to show it but the lengthening noonday shadows, the warmer
blue of the sky and the more rosy tint of the clouds that sailed across
it.

Other and more capable pens than mine have set forth the charm of autumn
and the beauties of Hampstead--queen of suburbs of the world's
metropolis; therefore will I refrain, and only note, as relevant to the
subject, the fact that on many a day, when the work of the hospital was
in full swing, I might have been seen playing truant very agreeably on
the inexhaustible Heath or in the lanes and fields adjacent thereto. In
truth, I was taking the final stage of my curriculum rather lazily,
having worked hard enough in the earlier years, and being still too young
by several months to be admitted to the fellowship of the College of
Surgeons; promising myself that when the weather broke I would settle
down in earnest to the winter's work.

I have mentioned that Millfield Lane was one of my favourite haunts;
indeed, from my lodgings, it was the most direct route to the Heath, and
I passed along it almost daily; and never, now, without my thoughts
turning back to that rainy night when I had found the dead--or
unconscious--man lying across the narrow footway. One morning, as I
passed the spot, it occurred to me to make a drawing of the place in my
sketch-book, that I might have some memorial of that strange adventure.
The pictorial possibilities of the lane just here were not great, but by
taking my stand at the turn, on the very spot where I had seen the body
lying, I was able to arrange a simple composition which was satisfactory
enough.

I am no artist. A neat and intelligible drawing is the utmost that I can
produce. But even this modest degree of achievement may be very useful,
as I had discovered many a time in the wards or laboratories-indeed, I
have often been surprised that the instructors of our youth attach such
small value to the power of graphic expression; and it came in usefully
now, though in a way that was unforeseen and not fully appreciated at the
moment. I had dealt adequately with the fence, the posts, the tree-trunks
and other well-defined forms and was beginning a less successful attack
on the foliage, when I heard a light, quick step approaching from
Hampstead Lane. Intuition-if there is such a thing-fitted the foot-step
with a personality, and, for once in a way, was right; as the newcomer
reached the sharp bend of the path, I saw a girl of about my own age,
simply and serviceably dressed and carrying a pochade box and a small
camp-stool. She was not an entire stranger to me. I had met her often in
the lane and on the Heath--so often in fact that we had developed that
profound unconsciousness of one another's existence that almost amounts
to recognition--and had wondered vaguely who she was and what sort of
work she did on the panels in that mysterious box.

As I drew back to make way for her, she brushed past, with a single,
quick, inquisitive glance at my sketchbook, and went on her way, looking
very much alive and full of business. I watched her as she tripped down
the lane and passed between the posts out into the suniight beyond, to
vanish behind the trunks of the elms; then I returned to my sketch and my
struggles to express foliage with a touch somewhat less suggestive of a
birch-broom.

When I had finished my drawing, I sauntered on rather aimlessly,
speculating for the hundredth time on the meaning of those discoveries of
mine in this very lane. Was it possible that the man whom I had seen was
not dead, but merely insensible? I could not believe it. The whole set of
circumstances--the aspect of the body, the blood-stain on the fence, the
tracks through the high grass and the mysterious gold trinket--were
opposed to any such belief. Yet, on the other hand, one would think that
a man could not disappear unnoticed. This was no tramp or nameless
vagrant. He was a clergyman or a priest, a man who would be known to a
great number of persons and whose disappearance must surely be observed
at once and be the occasion of very stringent enquiries. But no enquiries
had apparently been made. I had seen no notice in the papers of any
missing cleric, and clearly the police had heard nothing or they would
have looked me up. The whole affair was enveloped in tho profoundest
mystery. Dead or alive, the man had vanished utterly; and whether he was
dead or alive, the mystery was equally beyond solution.

These reflections brought me, almost unconsciously, to another of my
favourite walks; the pretty footpath from the Heath to Temple Fortune. I
had crossed the stile and stepped off the path to survey the pleasant
scene, when my eye was attracted by a number of streaks of alien colour
on the leaves of a burdock. Stooping down, I perceived that they were
smears of oil-paint, and inferred that someone had cleaned a palette on
the herbage; an inference that was confirmed a moment later by what
looked like the handle of a brush projecting from a clump of nettles.
When I drew it out, however, it proved to be not a brush, but a very
curious knife with a blade shaped like a diminutive and attenuated
trowel; evidently a painting-knife and also evidently home-made, at least
in part, for the tang had been thrust into a short, stout brush-handle
and secured with a whipping of waxed thread. I dropped it into my outside
breast pocket and went on my way, wondering if by chance it might have
been dropped by my fair acquaintance; and the thought was still in my
mind when its object hove in sight. Turning a bend in the path, I came on
her quite suddenly, perched on her little camp-stool in the shadow of the
hedge, with the open sketching-book on her knees, working away with an
industry and concentration that seemed to rebuke my own idleness. Indeed,
she was so much engrossed with her occupation that she did not notice me
until I stepped off the path and approached with the knife in my hand. "I
wonder," said I, holding it out and raising my cap, "if this happens to
be your property. I picked it up just now among the nettles near the
barn."

She took the knife from me and looked at it inquisitively. "No," she
replied, "it isn't mine, but I think I know whose it is. I suspect it
belongs to an artist who has been doing a good deal of work about the
Heath. You may have seen him."

"I have seen several artists working about here during the summer. What
was this one like?"

"Well," she answered with a smile, "he was like an artist. Very much
like. Quite the orthodox get up. Wide brimmed hat, rather long hair and a
ragged beard. And he wore sketching-spectacles-half-moon-shaped things,
you know-and kid gloves-which were not quite so orthodox."

"Very inconvenient, I should think."

"Not so very. I work in gloves myself in the cold weather or if the
midges are very troublesome. You soon get used to the feel of them; and
the man I am speaking of wouldn't find them in the way at all because he
works almost entirely with painting-knives. That is what made me think
that this knife was probably his. He had several, I know, and very
skilfully he used them, too."

"You have seen his work, then?"

"Well," she admitted, "I'm afraid I descended once or twice to play the
'snooper'. You see, his method of handling interested me."

"May I ask what a 'snooper' is?" I enquired.

"Don't you know? It's a student's slang name for the kind of person who
makes some transparent pretext for coming off the path and passing behind
you to get a look at your picture by false pretences."

For an instant there flashed into my mind the suspicion that she was
administering a quiet "backhander", and I rejoined hastily: "I hope you
are not including me in the genus 'snooper'."

She laughed softly. "It did sound rather like it. But I'll give you the
benefit of the doubt in consideration of your finding the knife-which you
had better keep in trust for the owner."

"Won't you keep it? You know the probable owner by sight and I don't; and
meanwhile you might experiment with it yourself."

"Very well," she replied, dropping it into her brush-tray, "I'll keep it
for the present at any rate."

There was a brief pause, and then I ventured to remark, "That looks a
very promising sketch of yours. And how well the subject comes."

"I'm glad you like it," she replied, quite simply, viewing her work with
her head on one side. "I want it to turn out well, because it's a
commission, and commissions for small-oil paintings are rare and
precious."

"Do you find small oil pictures very difficult to dispose of?" I asked.

"Not difficult. Impossible, as a rule. But I don't try now. I copy my oil
sketches in water-colour, with modifications to suit the market."

Again there was a pause; and, as her brush wandered towards the palette,
it occurred to me that I had stayed as long as good manners permitted.
Accordingly, I raised my cap, and, having expressed the hope that I had
not greatly hindered her, prepared to move away. "Oh, not at all," she
answered; "and thank you for the knife, though it isn't mine-or, at any
rate, wasn't. Good-morning."

With this and a pleasant smile and a little nod, she dismissed me; and
once more I went my idle and meditative way.

It had been quite a pleasant little adventure. There is always something
rather interesting in making the acquaintance of a person whom one has
known some time by sight but who is otherwise an unknown quantity. The
voice, the manner, and the little revelations of character, which confirm
or contradict previous impressions, are watched with interest as they
develop themselves and fill in, one by one, the blank spaces of the total
personality. I had, as I have said, often met this industrious maiden in
my walks and had formed the opinion that she looked a rather nice girl;
an opinion that was probably influenced by her unusual good looks and
graceful carriage. And a rather nice girl she had turned out to be; very
dignified and self-possessed, but quite simple and frank--though, to be
sure, her gracious reception of me had probably been due to my
sketch-book; she had taken me for a kindred spirit. She had a pleasant
voice and a faultless accent, with just a hint of the fine lady in her
manner; but I liked her none the less for that. And her name was a pretty
name, too, if I had guessed it correctly; for, on the inside of the lid
of her box, which was partly uncovered by the upright panel, I had read
the letters "Syl". The panel hid the rest, but the name could hardly be
other than Sylvia; and what more charming and appropriate name could be
bestowed upon a comely young lady who spent her days amidst the woods and
fields of my beloved Hampstead?

Regaling myself with this somewhat small beer, I sauntered on along the
grassy lane, between hedgerows that in the summer had been spangled with
wild roses and that were now gay with the big, oval berries, sleek and
glossy and scarlet, like overgrown beads of red coral; away, across the
fields to Golder's Green and thence by Millfield Lane, back to my
lodgings at Gospel Oak, and to my landlady, Mrs. Blunt, who had a few
plaintive words to say respecting the disastrous effects of
unpunctuality--and the resulting prolonged heat--on mutton cutlets and
fried potatoes.

It had been an idle morning and apparently void of significant events;
but yet, when I look back on it, I see a definite thread of causation
running through its simple happenings, and I realize that, all
unthinking, I had strung on one more bead to the chaplet of my destiny.

CHAPTER IV

SEPTIMUS MADDOCK, DECEASED

IT was getting well on into November when I strolled one afternoon into
the hospital museum, not with any specific object but rather vaguely in
search of something to do. During the last few days I had developed a
slight revival of industry--which had coincided, oddly enough, with a
marked deterioration of the weather--and, pathology being my weakest
point, the museum had seemed to call me (though not very loudly, I fear)
to browse amongst its multitudinous jars and dry preparations.

There was only one person in the great room; but he was a very important
person; being none other than our lecturer on Medical Jurisprudence, Dr.
John Thorndyke. He was seated at a small table whereon was set out a
collection of jars and a number of large photographs, of which he
appeared to be making a catalogue; but intent as he was on his
occupation, he looked up as I entered and greeted me with a genial smile.
"What do you think of my little collection, Jardine?" he asked, as I
approached deferentially. Before replying, I ran a vaguely enquiring eye
over the group of objects on the table and was mighty little enlightened
thereby. It was certainly a queer collection. There was a flat jar which
contained a series of five differently-coloured mice, another with a
similar series of three rats, a human foot, a hand-manifestly deformed-a
series of four fowls' heads and a number of photographs of plants. "It
looks," I replied, at length, "like what the auctioneers would call a
miscellaneous lot."

"Yes," Dr. Thorndyke agreed, "it is a miscellaneous collection in a
sense. But there is a connecting idea. It illustrates certain phenomena
of inheritance which were discovered and described by Mendel."

"Mendel!" I exclaimed. "Who is he? I never heard of him."

"I daresay not." said Thorndyke, "though he published his results before
you were born. But the importance of his discoveries is only now
beginning to be appreciated."

"I suppose," said I, "the subject is too large and complex for a short
explanation to be possible."

"The subject is a large one, of course," he replied; "but, put in a
nutshell, Mendel's great discovery amounts to this; that, whereas certain
characters are inherited only partially and fade off gradually in
successive generations, certain other characters are inherited completely
and pass unchanged from generation to generation. To take a couple of
illustrative cases: If a negro marries a European, the offspring are
mulattoes--forms intermediate between the negro and the European. If a
mulatto marries a European, the offspring are quadroons--another
intermediate form; and the next generation gives us the
octoroon--intermediate again between the quadroon and the European. And
so, from generation to generation, the negro character gradually fades
away and finally disappears. But there are other characters which are
inherited entire or not at all, and such characters appear in pairs which
are positive or negative to one another. Sex is a case in point. A male
marries a female and the offspring are either male or female, never
intermediate. The sex-character of only one parent is inherited, and it
is inherited completely. The characters of maleness or femaleness pass
down unchanged through the ages with no tendency to diminish or to shade
off into one another. That is a case of Mendelian inheritance."

I ran my eyes over the collection and they presently lighted on the
rather abnormal-looking foot, hanging, white and shrivelled in the clear
spirit. I lifted the jar from the table and then, noticing for the first
time, that the foot had a supernumerary toe, I enquired what point the
specimen illustrated. "That six-toed foot," Thorndyke replied, "is an
example of a deformity that is transmitted unchanged for an indefinite
number of generations. This brachydactylous hand is another instance. The
brachydactyly reappears in the offspring either completely or not at all.
There are no intermediate conditions."

He picked up the jar, and, having wiped the glass with a dustier,
exhibited the hand which was suspended within; and a strange-looking hand
it was; broad and stumpy, like the hand of a mole. "There seem to be only
two joints to each finger," I said. "Yes. The fingers are all thumbs, and
the thumb is only a demi-thumb. A joint is suppressed in each digit."

"It must make the hand very clumsy and useless," I remarked.

"So one would think. It isn't exactly the type of hand for a Liszt or a
Paganini. And yet we mustn't assume too much. I once saw an armless man
copying pictures in the Luxembourg, and copying them very well, too. He
held his brush with his toes; and he was so handy with his feet that he
not only painted really dextrously, but managed to take his hat off to a
lady with quite a fine flourish. So you see, Jardine, it is not the hand
that matters, but rather the brain that actuates it. A very indifferent
hand will serve if the motor centres are of the right sort."

He replaced the jar on the table, and then, after a short pause, turning
quickly to me, he asked: "What are you doing at present, Jardine?"

"Principally idling, sir," I replied.

"And not a bad thing to do either," he rejoined with a smile, "if you do
it thoroughly and don't keep it up too long. How would you like to take
charge of a practice for a week or so?"

"I don't know that I should particularly care to, sir," I answered.

"Why not? It would be a useful experience and would bring you useful
knowledge; knowledge that you have got to acquire sooner or later.
Hospital conditions, you know, are not normal conditions.

"General practice is normal medical practice, and the sooner you get to
know the conditions of the great world the better for you. If you stick
to the wards too long you will get to be like the nurses; who seem to
think that,

"'All the world's a hospital,
And men and women only patients.'"

I reflected for a few moments. It was perfectly true. I was a qualified
medical man, and yet of the ordinary routine of private practice I had
not the faintest knowledge. To me, all sick people were either
in-patients or out-patients. "Had you any particular practice in your
mind, sir?" I asked. "Yes. I met one of our old students just now. He is
at his wit's end to find a locum tenens. He has to go away to-night or
to-morrow morning, but he can't get anyone to look after his work. Won't
you go to his relief? It's an easy practice, I believe."

I turned the question over in my mind and finally decided to try the
venture. "That's right." said Dr. Thorndyke. "You'll help a professional
brother, at any rate, and pick up a little experience. Our friend's name
is Batson, and he lives in Jacob Street, Hampstead Road. I'll write it
down."

He handed me a slip of paper with the address on it and wished me
success; and I started at once from the hospital, already quite elated,
as is the way of the youthful, at the prospect of a new experience.

Dr. Batson's establishment in Jacob Street was modest to the verge of
dingyness. But Jacob Street, itself, was dingy, and so was the immediate
neighbourhood; a district of tall, grimy houses that might easily have
seen better days. However, Dr. Batson himself was spruce enough and in
excellent spirits at my arrival, as was evident when he bounced into the
room with a jovial greeting, bringing in with him a faint aroma of
sherry. "Delighted to see you, Doctor!" he exclaimed in his large brisk
voice (that "doctor" was a diplomatic hit on his part. They don't call
newly-qualified men "doctor" at the hospital.) "I met Thorndyke this
morning and told him of my predicament. A busy man is the Great
Unraveller, but never too busy to do a kindness to his friends. Can you
take over to-night?"

"I could," said I.

"Then do. I want particularly to be off by the eight-thirty from
Liverpool Street. Drop in and have some grub about six-thirty; I shall
have polished off the day's work by then and you'll just come in for the
evening consultations."

"Are there any cases that you will want me to see with you?" I asked.

"Oh, no," Batson replied, rather airily I thought. "They're all plain
sailing. There's a typhoid, he's doing well--fourth week; and there's a
tonsilitis and a psoas abscess--that's rather tedious, but still, it's
improving--and an old woman with a liver. You won't have any difficulty
with them. There's only one queer case; a heart."

"Valvular?" I asked.

"No, not valvular; I can tell you that much. I know what it isn't, but
I'm hanged if I know what it is. Chappie complains of pain, shortness of
breath, faintness and so on, but I can't find anything to account for it.
Heart-sounds all right, pulse quite good, no dropsy, no nothing. Seems
like malingering, but I don't see why he should malinger. I think I'll
get you to drop in this evening and have a look at him."

"Are you keeping him in bed?" I asked.

"Yes," said Batson, "I am now; not that his general condition seems to
demand it. But he has had one or two fainting attacks, and yesterday he
must needs fall down flop in his bedroom when there was nobody there,
and, by way of making things more comfortable, he drops his medicine
bottle and falls on the fragments. He might have killed himself, you
know," Batson added in an aggrieved tone; "as it was, a long splinter
from the bottom of the bottle stuck into his back and made quite a deep
little wound. So I've kept him in bed since, out of harm's way; and there
he is, deuced sorry for himself but, as far as I can make out, without a
single tangible symptom."

"No facial signs? Nothing unusual in his colour or expression."

Batson laughed and tapped his gold-rimmed spectacles. "Ah! There you are!
When you've got minus five D and some irregular astigmatism and a pair of
glasses that don't correct it, all human beings look pretty much alike; a
trifle sketchy, don't you know. I didn't see anything unusual in his
face, but you might. Time will show. Now you cut along and fetch your
traps, and I'll skip round and polish off the sufferers."

He launched me into the outer greyness of Jacob Street and bounced off in
the direction of Cumberland Market, leaving me to pursue my way to my
lodgings at Gospel Oak.

As I threaded the teeming streets of Camden Town I meditated on the new
experience that was opening to me, and, with youthful egotism, I already
saw myself making a brilliant diagnosis of an obscure heart case. Also I
reflected with some surprise on the calm view that Batson took of his
defective eyesight. A certain type of painter, as I had observed, finds
in semi-blindness a valuable gift which helps him to eliminate trivial
detail and to impart a noble breadth of effect to his pictures; but to a
doctor no such self-delusion would seem possible. Visual acuteness is the
most precious item in his equipment.

I crammed into a large Gladstone bag the bare necessaries for a week's
stay, together with a few indispensable instruments, and then mounted the
jingling horse-tram of those pre-electric days, which, in due course,
deposited me at the end of Jacob Street, Hampstead Road. Dr. Batson had
not returned from his round when I arrived, but a few minutes later he
burst into the surgery humming an air from the Mikado. "Ha! Here you are
then! Punctual to the minute!" He hung his hat on a peg, laid his
visiting-list on the desk of the dispensing counter and began to compound
medicine with the speed of a prestidigitateur, talking volubly all the
time. "That's for the old woman with the liver, Mrs. Mudge, Cumberland
Market, you'll see her prescription in the day book. S'pose you don't
know how to wrap up a bottle of medicine. Better watch me. This is the
way." He slapped the bottle down on a square of cut paper, gave a few
dextrous twiddles of his fingers and held out for my inspection a little
white parcel like the mummy-case of a deceased medicine bottle. "It's
quite easy when you've had a little practice," he said, deftly sticking
the ends down with sealing-wax, "but you'll make a frightful mucker of it
at first." Which prophecy was duly fulfilled that very evening.

"What time had I better see that heart case?" said I.

"Oh, you won't have to see it at ail. Man's dead. Message left half an
hour go. Pity, isn't it? I should have liked to hear what you thought of
him. Must have been fatty heart. I'll write out the certificate while I
think of it. Maggie! Where's that note that Mrs. Samway left?"

The question was roared out vaguely through the open door to a servant of
unknown whereabouts, and resulted in the appearance of a somewhat scraggy
housemaid bearing an opened note. "Here we are," said Batson, snatching
the note out of its envelope and opening the book of certificate forms;
"Septimus Maddock was the chappie's name, age fifty-one, address 23,
Gayton Street, cause of death-that's just what I should like to
know-primary cause, secondary causes-I wish these infernal government
clerks had got something better to do than fill printed forms with silly
connundrums. I shall put "Morbus Cordis"; that ought to be enough for
them. Mrs. Samway-that's his landlady, you know-will probably call for
the certificate during the evening."

"Aren't you going to inspect the body?" I asked.

"Lord, no! Why should I! It isn't necessary, you know. I'm not an
undertaker. Wish I was. Dead people good deal more profitable than live
ones."

"But surely," I exclaimed, "the death ought to be verified. Why the man
may not be dead at all."

"I know," said Batson, scribbling away like a minor poet, "but that isn't
my business. Business of the Law. Law wastes your time with a heap of
silly questions that don't matter and leaves out the question that does.
Asks exact time when I last saw him alive, which doesn't matter a hang,
and doesn't ask whether I saw him dead. Bumble was right. Law's an ass."

"But still," I persisted, "leaving the legal requirements out of
consideration, oughtn't you for your own sake, and as a public duty, to
verify the death? Supposing the man were not really dead?"

"That would be awkward for him," said Batson, "and awkward for me, too,
if he came to life before they buried him. But it doesn't really happen
in real life. Premature burial only occurs in novels."

His easy-going confidence jarred on me considerably. How could he, or
anyone else, know what happened? "I don't see how you arrive at that," I
objected. "It could only be proved by wholesale disinterment. And the
fact remains that, if you don't verify a reported death you have no
security against premature burial--or even cremation."

Batson started up and stared at me, his wide-open, pale-blue eyes looking
ridiculously small through his deep, concave spectacles. "By Jove!" he
exclaimed, "I am glad you mentioned that--about cremation, I mean,
because that is what will probably happen. I witnessed the chappie's will
a couple of days ago, and I remember now that one of the clauses
stipulated that his body should be cremated. So I shall have to verify
the death for the purpose of the cremation certificate. We'd better pop
round and see him at once."

With characteristic impulsiveness he sprang to his feet, snatched his hat
from its peg, and started forth, leaving me to follow. "Beastly nuisance,
these special regulations," said Batson, as he ambled briskly up the
street. "Give a lot of trouble and cause a lot of delay."

"Isn't the ordinary death certificate sufficient in a case of cremation?"
I asked.

"For purposes of law it is, though there is some talk of new legislation
on the subject, but the Company are a law unto themselves. They have made
the most infernally stringent regulations, and, as there is no
crematorium near London excepting the one at Woking, you have to abide by
their rules. And that reminds me--" here Batson halted and scowled at me
ferociously through his spectacles.

"Reminds you?" I repeated.

"That they require a second death certificate, signed by a man with
certain special qualifications." He stood awhile frowning and muttering
under his breath and then suddenly turned and bounced off in a new
direction. "Going to catch the other chappie and take him with us," he
explained, as he darted out into the Hampstead Road. "Be off my mind
then. A fellow named O'Connor, Assistant Physician to the North London
Hospital. He'll do if we can catch him at home. If not, you'll have to
manage him."

Batson looked at his watch--holding it within four inches of his
nose--and broke into a trot as we entered a quiet square. Halfway up he
halted at a door which bore a modest brass plate inscribed "Dr.
O'Connor," and seizing the bell-knob, worked it vigorously in and out as
if it were the handle of an air-pump. "Doctor in?" he demanded briskly of
a startled housemaid; and, without waiting for an answer, he darted into
the hall, down the whole length of which he staggered, executing a sort
of sword-dance, having caught his toe on an unobserved door-mat.

The doctor was in and he shortly appeared in evening dress with an
overcoat on his arm, and apparently in as great a hurry as Batson
himself. "Won't it do to-morrow?" he asked, when Batson had explained his
difficulties and the service required.

"Might as well come now," said Batson persuasively; "won't take a minute
and then I can go away in peace."

"Very well," said O'Connor, wriggling into his overcoat. "You go along
and I'll follow in a few minutes. I've got to look in on a patient on my
way up west, and I shall be late for my appointment as it is. Write the
address on my card, here."

He held out a card to my principal, and when the latter had scribbled the
address on it, he bustled out and vanished up the square. Batson followed
at the same headlong speed, and, again overlooking the mat, came out on
the pavement like an ill-started sprinter.

Gayton Street, at which we shortly arrived, was a grey and dingy
side-street exactly like a score of others in the same locality, and
Number 23 differed from the rest of the seedy-looking houses in no
respect save that it was perhaps a shade more dingy. The door was opened
in answer to Batson's indecorously brisk knock by a woman--or perhaps I
should say a lady--who at once admitted us and to whom Batson began,
without preface, to explain the situation. "I got your note, Mrs. Samway.
Was going to bring my friend, here, round to see the patient. Very
unfortunate affair. Very sad. Unexpected, too. Didn't seem particularly
bad yesterday. What time did it happen?"

"I can't say exactly," was the reply. "He seemed quite comfortable when I
looked in on him the last thing at night, but when I went in about seven
this morning he was dead. I should have let you know sooner, but I was
expecting you to call."

"H'm, yes," said Batson, "very unfortunate. By the way, Mr. Maddock
desired that his remains should be cremated, I think?"

"Yes, so my husband tells me. He is the executor of the will, you
remember, in the absence of any relatives. All Mr. Maddock's relations
seem to be in America."

"Have you got the certificate forms?" asked Batson.

"Yes. My husband got all the papers from the undertaker this afternoon."

"Very well, Mrs. Samway, then we'll just take a look at the body--have to
certify that I've seen it, you know."

Mrs. Samway ushered us into a sitting-room where she had apparently been
working alone, for an unfinished mourning garment of some kind lay on the
table. Leaving us here, she went away and presently returned with a sheaf
of papers and a lighted candle, when we rose and followed her to a back
room on the ground floor. It was a smallish room, sparely furnished, with
heavy curtains drawn across the window, and by one wall a bed, on which
was a motionless figure covered by a sheet.

Our conductress stood the candlestick on a table by the bed and stepped
back to make way for Batson, who drew back the sheet and looked down on
the body in his peering, near-sighted fashion. The deceased seemed to be
a rather frail-looking man of about fifty, but, beyond the fact that he
was clean shaven, I could form very little idea of his appearance, since,
in addition to the usual bandage under the chin to close the mouth, a
tape had been carried round the head to secure a couple of pads of cotton
wool over the eyes to keep the eyelids closed.

As Batson applied his stethoscope to the chest of the dead man, I glanced
at our hostess not without interest. Mrs. Samway was an unusual-looking
woman, and I thought her decidedly handsome though not attractive to me
personally. She seemed to be about thirty, rather over the medium height
and of fine Junonesque proportions, with a small head very gracefully set
on the shoulders. Her jet-black hair, formally parted in the middle, was
brought down either side of the forehead in wavy, but very smooth, masses
and gathered behind in a neat, precisely-plaited coil. The general effect
reminded me of the so-called "Clytie," having the same reposefulness
though not the gentleness and softness of that lovely head. But the most
remarkable feature of this woman was the colour of her eyes, which were
of the palest grey or hazel that I have ever seen; so pale in fact that
they told as spots of light, like the eyes of some lemurs or those of a
cat seen in the dusk; a peculiarity that imparted a curiously intense and
penetrating quality to her glance.

I had just noted these particulars when Batson, having finished his
examination, held out the stethoscope to me. "May as well listen, as
you're here," said he, and, turning to our hostess, he added: "Let us see
those papers, Mrs. Samway."

As he stepped over to the table, I took his place on a chair by the
bedside and proceeded to make an examination. It was, of course, only a
matter of form, for the man was obviously dead; but having insisted so
strongly on the necessity of verifying the death I had to make a show of
becoming scepticism. Accordingly I tested, both by touch and with the
stethoscope, the region of the heart. Needless to say, no heart-sounds
were to be distinguished, nor any signs of pulsation; indeed, the very
first touch of my hand on the chilly surface of the chest was enough to
banish any doubt. No living body could be so entirely destitute of animal
heat.

I laid down the stethoscope and looked reflectively at the dead man,
lying so still and rigid, with his bandaged jaws and blindfolded eyes,
and speculated vaguely on his personality when alive and on the hidden
disease that had so suddenly cut him off from the land of the living; and
insensibly--by habit I suppose--my fingers strayed to his clammy,
pulseless wrist. The sleeve of his night-shirt was excessively long,
almost covering the fingers, and I had to turn it back to reach the spot
where the pulse would normally be felt. In doing this, I moved the dead
hand slightly and then became aware of a well-marked rigor mortis, or
death stiffening in the arm of the corpse; a condition which I ought to
have observed sooner.

At this moment, happening to look up, I caught the eye of Mrs. Samway
fixed on me with a very remarkable expression. She was leaning over
Batson as he filled up the voluminous certificate, but had evidently been
watching me, and the expression of her pale, catlike eyes left no doubt
in my mind that she strongly resented my proceedings. In some confusion,
and accusing myself of some failure in outward decorum, I hastily drew
down the dead man's sleeve and rose from the bedside. "You noticed, I
suppose," said I, "that there is fairly well-marked rigor mortis?"

"I didn't," said Batson, "but if you did it'll do as well. Better mention
it to O'Connor when he comes. He ought to be here now."

"Who is O'Connor?" asked Mrs. Samway.

"Oh, he is the doctor who is going to sign the confirmatory certificate."

Again a gleam of unmistakable anger flashed from our hostess' eyes as she
demanded: "Then who is this gentleman?"

"This is Dr. Humphrey Jardine," said Batson. "'Pologize for not
introducing him before. Dr. Jardine is taking my practice while I'm away.
I'm off to-night for about a week."

Mrs. Samway withered me with a baleful glance of her singular eyes, and
remarked stiffly: "I don't quite see why you brought him here."

She turned her back on me, and I decided that Mrs. Samway was somewhat of
a Tartar; though, to be sure, my presence was a distinct intrusion. I was
about to beat a retreat when Batson's apologies were interrupted by a
noisy rat-tat at the street door. "Ah, here's O'Connor," said Batson,
and, as Mrs. Samway went out to open the door, he added: "Seem to have
put our foot in it, though I don't see why she need have been so peppery
about it. And O'Connor needn't have banged at the door like that, with
death in the house. He'll get into trouble if he doesn't look out."

Our colleague's manner was certainly not ingratiating. He burst into the
room with his watch in his hand protesting that he was three minutes late
already, " and," he added, "if there is one thing that I detest, it's
being late at dinner. Got the forms?"

"Yes," replied Batson, "here they are. That's my certificate on the front
page. Yours is overleaf."

Dr. O'Connor glanced rapidly down the long table of questions, muttering
discontentedly. "'Made careful external examination?' H'm. 'Have you made
a post mortem?' No, of course, I haven't. What an infernal rigmarole! If
cremation ever becomes general there'll be no time for anything but
funerals. Who nursed the deceased?"

"I did," said Mrs. Samway. "My husband relieved me occasionally, but
nearly all the nursing was done by me. My name is Letitia Samway."

"Was the deceased a relation of yours?"

"No; only a friend. He lived with us for a time in Paris and came to
England with us."

"What was his occupation?"

"He was nominally a dealer in works of art. Actually he was a man of
independent means."

"Have you any pecuniary interest in his death?"

"He has left us about seventy pounds. My husband is the executor of the
will."

"I see. Well, I'd better have a few words with you outside, Batson,
before I make my examination. It's all a confounded farce, but we must go
through the proper forms, I suppose."

"Yes, by all means," said Batson. "Don't leave any loop-hole for queries
or objections." He rose and accompanied O'Connor out into the hall,
whence the sound of hurried muttering came faintly through the door.

As soon as we were alone, I endeavoured to make my peace with Mrs. Samway
by offering apologies for my intrusion into the house of mourning. "For
the time being," I concluded, "I am Dr. Batson's assistant, and, as he
seemed to wish me to come with him, I came without considering that my
presence might be objected to. I hope you will forgive me."

My humility appeared entirely to appease her; in a moment her stiff and
forbidding manner melted into one that was quite gracious and she
rewarded me with a smile that made her face really charming. "Of course,"
she said, "it was silly of me to be so cantankerous and rude, too. But it
did look a little callous, you know, when I saw you playing with his
poor, dead hand; so you must make allowances." She smiled again, very
prettily, and at this moment my two colleagues re-entered the room. "Now,
then," said O'Connor, "let us see the body and then we shall have
finished."

He strode over to the bed, and, turning back the sheet, made a rapid
inspection of the corpse. "Ridiculous farce," he muttered. "Looks all
right. Would, in any case though. Parcel of red tape. What's the good of
looking at the outside of a body? Post mortem's the only thing that's any
use. What's this piece of tape-plaster on the back?"

"Oh," said Batson, " that is a little cut that he made by falling on a
broken bottle. I stuck the plaster on because you can't get a bandage to
hold satisfactorily on the back. Besides, he didn't want a bandage
constricting his chest."

"No, of course not," O'Connor agreed. "Well, it's all regular and
straightforward. Give me the form and I'll fill it up and sign it." He
seated himself at the table, looked once more at his watch, groaned aloud
and began to write furiously. "The Egyptians weren't such bad judges,
after all," he remarked as he laid down the pen and rose from his chair.
"Embalming may have been troublesome, but when it was done it was done
for good. The deceased was always accessible for reference in case of a
dispute, and all this red tape was saved. Good-night, Mrs. Samway." He
buttoned up his coat and bustled off, and a minute or so later we
followed.

"By jove!" exclaimed Batson, "this business has upset my arrangements
finely. I shall have to buck up if I'm going to catch my train. There's
all the medicine to be made up and sent out yet, to say nothing of
dinner. But dinner will have to wait until the business is all settled
up. Don't you hurry, Jardine. I'll just run on and get to work." He broke
into an elephantine trot and soon disappeared round a corner, and, when I
arrived at the surgery, I found him posting up the day-book with the
speed of a parliamentary reporter.

Batson's dexterity with medicine-bottles and wrapping paper filled me
with admiration and despair. I made a futile effort to assist, but in the
end, he snatched away the crumpled paper in which I was struggling to
enswathe a bottle, dropped it into the waste-paper basket, snatched up a
clean sheet and-slap! bang! in the twinkling of an eye, he had
transformed the bottle into a neat, little white parcel as a conjuror
changes a cocked hat into a guinea-pig. It was wonderful.

My host was a cheerful soul, but restless. He got up from the table no
less than six times to pack some article that he had just thought of; and
after dinner, when I accompanied him to his bedroom, I saw him empty his
trunk no less than three times to make sure that he had forgotten
nothing. He quite worried me. Your over-quick man is apt to wear out
other people's nerves more than his own. I began to look anxiously at the
dock, and felt a real relief when the maid came to announce that the cab
was at the door. "Well, good-bye. Doctor!" he sang out cheerily, shaking
my hand through the open window of the cab. "Don't forget to keep the
stock-bottles filled up. Saves a world of trouble. And don't take too
long on your rounds. Ta! ta!"

The cab rattled away and I went back into the house, a full-blown general
practitioner.

CHAPTER V

THE LETHAL CHAMBER

A YOUNG and newly-qualified doctor, emerging for the first time into
private practice, is apt to be somewhat surprised and disconcerted by the
new conditions. Accustomed to the exclusively professional and scientific
atmosphere of the hospital, the sudden appearance of the personal element
as the predominant factor rather takes him aback. He finds himself in a
new and unexpected position. No longer a mere, impersonal official, a
portion of a great machine, he is the paid servant of his patients: who
are not always above letting him feel the conditions of his service. The
hospital patient, drilled into a certain respectful submissiveness by the
discipline of the wards, has given place to an employer, usually
critical, sometimes truculent and occasionally addicted to a disagreeable
frankness of speech.

The locum tenens, moreover, is peculiarly susceptible to these
conditions, especially if, as in my case, his appearance is youthful.
Patients resent the substitution of a stranger for the familiar medical
attendant and are at no great pains to disguise the fact. The "old woman
with the liver" (to adopt Batson's pellucid phrase) hinted that I was
rather young, adding encouragingly that I should get the better of that
in time; while the more morose typhoid bluntly informed me that he hadn't
bargained for being attended by a medical student.

Taken as a whole, I found private practice disappointing and soon began
to wish myself back in the wards and to sigh for my quiet, solitary
rambles on Hampstead Heath.

Still, there were rifts in the cloud. Some of the patients appreciated
the interest that I took in their cases, evidently contrasting it with
the rather casual attitude of my principal, and some were positively
friendly. But, in general, my reception was such as to make me slightly
apprehensive whenever a new patient appeared.

On the fourth evening after Batson's departure, Mrs. Samway was announced
and I prepared myself for the customary snub. But I was mistaken. Nothing
could be more gracious than her manner towards me, though the object of
her visit occasioned me some embarrassment. "I have called, Dr. Jardine."
she said, "to ask you if you could let me have the account for poor Mr.
Maddock. My husband is the executor, you know, and, as we shall be going
back to Paris quite shortly, he wants to get everything settled up."

I was in rather a quandary. Of the financial side of practice I was
absolutely ignorant and I thought it best to say so. "But," I added, "Dr.
Batson will be back on Friday evening, if you can wait so long."

"Oh, that will do quite well," she replied, "but don't forget to tell him
that we want the account at once."

I promised not to forget, and then remarked that she would, no doubt, be
glad to be back in Paris. "No," she answered, "I shall be rather sorry.
Of course Camden Town is not a very attractive neighbourhood, but it is
close to the heart of London; and then there are some delightful places
near and quite accessible. There is Highgate, for instance."

"Yes; but it is getting very much built over, isn't it?"

"Unfortunately it is; but yet there are some very pleasant places left.
The old village is still charming. So quaint and old world. And then
there is Hampstead. What could be more delightful than the Heath? But
perhaps you don't know Hampstead?"

"Oh, yes I do," said I; "my rooms are at Gospel Oak, quite near the
Heath, and I think I know every nook and corner of the neighbourhood. I
am pining for a stroll on the Heath at this very moment."

"I daresay you are," she said sympathetically. "This is a depressing
neighbourhood if you can't get away from it. We found it very dismal, at
first, after Paris."

"Do you live in Paris?" I asked.

"Not permanently," she replied. "But we spend a good deal of time there.
My husband is a dealer in works of art, so he has to travel about a good
deal. That is how we came to know Mr. Maddock."

"He was a dealer too, wasn't he?" I enquired.

"Yes, in a way. But he had means of his own and his dealing was a mere
excuse for collecting things that he was not going to keep. He had a
passion for buying, and then he used to sell the things in order to buy
more. But I am afraid I am detaining you with my chatter?"

"No, not at all," I said eagerly, only too glad to have an intelligent,
educated person to talk to; "you are the last caller, and I hope I have
finished my day's work."

Accordingly she stayed quite a long time, chatting on a variety of
subjects and finally on that of cremation. "I daresay," she said, "it is
more sanitary and wholesome than burial, but there is something rather
dreadful about it. Perhaps it is because we are not accustomed to the
idea."

"Did you go to the funeral?" I asked.

"Yes. Mr. Maddock had no friends in England but my husband and me, so we
both went. It was very solemn and awesome. The coffin was laid on the
catafalque while a short service was read, and then two metal doors
opened and it was passed through out of our sight. We waited some time
and presently they brought us a little terra-cotta urn with just a
handful or two of white ash in it. That was all that was left of our poor
friend Septimus Maddock. Don't you think it is rather dreadful?"

"Death is always rather dreadful," I answered. "But when we look at the
ashes of a dead person, we realize the total destruction of the body;
whereas the grave keeps its secrets. If we could look down through the
earth and see the changes that are taking place, we should probably find
the slow decay more shocking than the swift consumption by fire.
Fortunately we cannot. But we know that the final result is the same in
both."

Mrs. Samway shuddered slightly, and drew her wraps more closely about
her. "Yes," she said with a faint sigh; "the same end awaits us all--but
it is better not to think about it."

We were both silent for awhile. I sat with my gaze bent rather absently
on the case-book before me, turning over her last somewhat gloomy
utterance, until, chancing to look up, I found her pale, penetrating eyes
fixed on me with the same strange intentness that I had noticed when she
had looked at me as I sat by the body of Maddock. As she met my glance,
she looked down quickly but without confusion, and with a return to her
habitual reposefulness.

Half-unconsciously I returned her scrutiny. She was a remarkable-looking
woman. A beautiful woman, too, but of a type that is, in our time and
country, rare: an ancient or barbaric type in which womanly beauty and
grace are joined to manifest physical strength. I felt that some unusual
racial mixture spoke in her inconsistent colouring; her clear, pink skin,
her pale eyes and the jet-black hair that rippled down either side of her
low forehead in little crimpy waves, as regular and formal as the
"archaic curls" of early Greek sculpture.

But predominant over all other qualities was that of strength. Full and
plump, soft and almost ultra-feminine, lissom and flexible in every pose
and movement, yet, to me, the chief impression that her appearance
suggested was strength--sheer, muscular strength; not the rigid bull-dog
strength of a strong man, but the soft and supple strength of a leopard.
I looked at her as she sat almost limply in her chair, with her head on
one side, her hands resting in her lap and a beautiful, soft, womanly
droop of the shoulders; and I felt that she could have started up in an
instant, active, strong, formidable, like a roused panther.

I was going on, I think, to make comparisons between her and that other
woman who was wont to trip so daintily down Millfield Lane, when she
raised her eyes slowly to mine; and suddenly she blushed scarlet. "Am I a
very remarkable-looking person, Dr. Jardine? "she asked quietly, as if
answering my thoughts.

The rebuke was well merited. For an instant a paltry compliment fluttered
on my lips; but I swallowed it down. She wasn't that kind of woman. "I am
afraid I have been staring you out of countenance, Mrs. Samway," I said
apologetically.

"Hardly that," she replied with a smile; "but you certainly were looking
at me very attentively."

"Well," I said, recovering myself, "after all, a cat may look at a king,
you know."

She laughed softly--a very pretty, musical laugh--and rose, still
blushing warmly. "And," she retorted, "by the same reasoning, you think a
king may look at a cat. Very well, Dr. Jardine. Good-night."

She held out her hand; a beautifully-shaped hand, though rather
large--but, as I have said, she was not a small woman; and as it clasped
mine, though the pressure was quite gentle, it conveyed, like her
appearance, an impression of abundant physical strength.

I accompanied her to the door and watched her as she walked up the dingy
street with an easy, erect, undulating gait; even as might have walked
those women who are portrayed for the wonder of all time on the
ivory-toned marble of the Parthenon frieze. I followed with my eyes the
dignified, graceful figure until it vanished round the corner, and then
went back to the consulting-room dimly wondering why a woman of such
manifest beauty and charm should offer little attraction to me.

Batson's practice, among its other drawbacks, suffered from a deadly lack
of professional interest. Whether this was its normal condition, or
whether his patients had got wind of me and called in other and more
experienced practitioners, I know not; but certainly, after the stirring
work of the hospital, the cases that I had to deal with seemed very small
beer. Hence the prospect of a genuine surgical case came as a grateful
surprise and I hailed it with enthusiasm.

It was on the day before Batson's expected return that I received the
summons; which was delivered to me in a dirty envelope as I sat by the
bedside of the last patient on my list. "Is the messenger waiting?" I
asked, tearing open the envelope.

"No, Doctor. He just handed in the note and went off. He seemed to be in
a hurry."

I ran my eye over the message, scrawled in a rather illiterate hand on a
sheet of common notepaper, and read:

"SIR,

Will you please come at once to the Mineral Water Works in Norton Street.
One of our men has injured himself rather badly.

Yours truly,

J. PABKEE.

P.S.-He is bleeding a good deal, so please come quick."

The postscript gave a very necessary piece of information. An injury
which bled would require certain dressings and surgical appliances over
and above those contained in my pocket case; and to obtain these I should
have to take Batson's house on the way. Slipping the note into my pocket,
I wished my patient a hasty adieu and strode off at a swinging pace in
the direction of Jacob Street.

The housemaid, Maggie, helped me to find the dressings and pack the
bag--for she was a handy, intelligent girl though no beauty; and
meanwhile I questioned her as to the whereabouts of Norton Street and the
mineral water factory. "Oh, I know the place well enough, sir," said she,
"though I didn't know the works were open. Norton Street is only a few
minutes' walk from here. It's quite close to Gayton Street, in fact these
works are just at the back of the Samway's house. You go up to the corner
by the market and take the second on the right and then--"

"Look here, Maggie," I interrupted, "you'd better come and show me the
way, as you know the place. There's no time to waste on fumbling for the
right turning."

"Very well, sir," she replied, and the bag being now packed with all
necessary instruments and dressings, we set forth together. "Is this a
large factory?" I asked, as she trotted by my side, to the astonished
admiration of Jacob Street, and the neighbourhood in general.

"No, sir," she replied. "It's quite a small place. The last people went
bankrupt and the works were empty and to let for a long time. I thought
they were still to let, but I suppose somebody has taken them and started
the business afresh. It's round here."

She piloted me round a corner into a narrow bystreet, near the end of
which she halted at the gate of a yard or mews. Above the entrance was a
weather-beaten board bearing the inscription, "International Mineral
Water Company " and a half-defaced printed bill offering the premises to
let; and at the side was a large bell-pull. A vigorous tug at the latter
set a bell jangling within, and, as Maggie tripped away up the street, a
small wicket in the gate opened, disclosing the dimly-seen figure of a
man standing in the inner darkness. "Are you the doctor?" he inquired.

I answered "Yes," and, being thereupon bidden to enter, stepped through
the opening of the wicket, which the man immediately closed, shutting out
the last gleam of light from the street lamp outside. "It's rather dark,"
said the unseen custodian, taking me by the arm. "It is indeed," I
replied, groping with my feet over the rough cobbles; "hadn't you better
get a light of some kind?"

"I will in a minute," was the reply. "You see, all the other men have
gone home. We close at six sharp. This is the way. I'll strike a match.
The man is down in the bottling-room."

My conductor struck a match by the light of which he guided me through a
doorway, along a passage or corridor and down a flight of stone steps. At
the bottom of the steps was a flagged passage, out of which opened what
looked like a range of cellars. Along the passage I walked warily,
followed by the stranger and lighted, very imperfectly, by the matches
that he struck; the glimmer of which threw a gigantic and ghostly shadow
of myself on the stone floor, but failed utterly to pierce the darkness
ahead. I was exactly opposite the yawning doorway of one of the cellars
when the match went out, and the man behind me exclaimed: "Wait a moment,
Doctor! Don't move until I strike another light."

I halted abruptly; and the next moment I received a violent thrust that
sent me staggering through the open doorway into the cellar. Instantly,
the massive door slammed and a pair of heavy bolts were shot in
succession on the outside.

"What the devil is the meaning of this?" I roared, battering and kicking
furiously at the door. Of course there was no answer, and I quickly
stopped my demonstrations, for it dawned on me m a moment that the
factory was untenanted save by the ruffian who had admitted me; that I
had been decoyed here of a set purpose, though what that purpose was I
could not imagine.

But it was not long before I received a pretty broad hint as to the
immediate intentions of my host. A gentle thumping at the door of my
cellar attracted my attention and caused me to lay my ear against the
wood. The sound that I heard was quite unmistakable. The crevices of the
door were being filled, apparently with pieces of rag, which my friend
was ramming home, presumably with a chisel. In fact the door was being
"caulked " to make the joints airtight.

The object of this proceeding was clear enough. I was shut up in an
air-tight cavity in which I was to be slowly suffocated. That was quite
obvious. Why I was to be suffocated, I could form no sort of guess
excepting that I had fallen into the hands of a homicidal lunatic. But I
was not greatly alarmed. The air in a good-sized cellar will last a
considerable time, and I could easily poke out anything that my friend
might stuff into the keyhole. Then, when the men arrived in the morning,
I could kick on the cellar door, and they would come and let me out.
There was nothing to be particularly frightened about.

Were there any men? The injured man was evidently a myth. Supposing the
other men were a myth too? I recalled Maggie's remark, that she "had
thought the place was to let still." Perhaps it was. That would be rather
more serious.

At this point my agitations were broken in upon by sounds from the
adjoining cellar; the sound of someone moving about and dragging some
heavy body. And it struck me at once as strange that I should hear these
sounds so distinctly, seeing the massive door of my own cellar was sealed
and the walls were of solid brick, as I ascertained by rapping at them
with my knuckles. But I had no time to consider this circumstance, for
there suddenly rose a new sound, whereat, I must confess my heart fairly
came into my mouth; a loud, penetrating hiss like the shriek of escaping
steam. It seemed to come from some part of the cellar in which I was
immured; from a spot nearly overhead; and it was immediately echoed by a
similar sound in the adjoining cellar and then by a third. Even as the
last sound broke forth, the door of the adjoining cellar slammed, the
bolts were shot and then faintly mingled with the discordant hissing. I
could hear the dull thumping that told me that the cracks of that door,
too, were being caulked.

It was a frightful situation. The hissing sound was obviously caused by
the escape of gas under high pressure, and that gas must be entering my
cellar through some opening. I felt for my match-box, and, groping along
the wall towards the point whence the loudest sound--and, indeed, all the
sounds--proceeded, I struck a match. The glimmer of the wax vesta made
everything clear. Close to the ceiling, about seven feet from the ground,
was an opening in the wall about six inches square; and pouring through
this in a continuous stream was a cloud of white particles that glistened
like snowflakes. As I stood under the opening, some of them settled on
my face; and the more than icy coldness of the contact, told the whole,
horrible tale in a moment.

This white powder WAS snow-carbonic acid snow The hissing sound came from
three of those great iron bottles, charged under pressure with liquified
carbonic acid, which are used by minera1 water manufacturers for aerating
the water. The miscreant (or lunatic) who had imprisoned me had turned on
the taps, and the liquid was escaping and turning into to snow with the
cold produced by its own rapid evaporation and expansion. Of course the
snow would quickly absorb heat, and, without again liquefying, evaporate
into the gaseous form. In a very short time both cellars would be full of
the poisonous gas, and I-well, in a word, I was shut up in a lethal
chamber.

It has taken me some time to write this explanation, which, however,
flashed through my brain in the twinkling of an eye as the light of the
match fell on that sinister cloud of snowflakes. In a moment I had my
coat off, and was stuffing it for dear life into the opening. It was but
a poor protection against the gas, which would easily enough find its way
through the interstices of the fabric; but it would stop the direct
stream of snow and give me time to think.

On what incalculable chances do the great issues of our lives depend! If
I had been a short man I must have been dead in half an hour; for the
opening through which the cloud of snow was pouring was well over seven
feet above the floor and would have been quite out of my reach. Even as
it was, with my six feet of stature and corresponding length of arm, it
was impossible to ram my coat into the opening with the necessary force,
for I had to stand close to the wall with my arm upraised at a great
mechanical disadvantage. Still, as I have said, imperfect as the
obstruction was, it served to stop the inrushing cloud of snow. It would
take some time for the heavy gas in the adjoining cellar to rise to the
level of the opening, and, meanwhile, I could be devising other measures.

I lit another match and looked about me. The cellar was much smaller than
I had thought and was absolutely empty. The floor was of concrete, the
walls of rough brickwork and the ceiling of plaster, all cracked and
falling in. There was plenty of ventilation there, but that was of no
interest to me. Carbonic acid gas is so heavy that it behaves almost like
a liquid, and it would have filled the cellar and suffocated me even if
the top of my prison had been open to the sky. The adjoining cellar was
already filling rapidly, and when the gas in it reached the level of the
opening, it would percolate through my coat and come pouring down into my
cellar. But that, as I have said, would take some time-if the dividing
wall was moderately sound. This important qualification, as soon as it
occurred to me, set me exploring the wall with the aid of another match;
and very unsatisfactory was the result. It was a bad wall, built of
inferior brick and worse mortar, and was marked by innumerable holes
where wall-hooks and other fastenings had been driven in between the
bricks. My brief survey convinced me that, so far from being gas-tight,
the wall was as pervious as a sponge, and that whatever I meant to do to
preserve my life, I must set about without delay.

But what was I to do? That was the urgent, the vital question. Escape was
evidently impossible. There were no means of stopping up the numberless
holes and weak places in the wall. The only vulnerable spot was the door.
If I could establish some communication with the outer air, I could, for
a time at least, disregard the poisonous gas with which I should
presently be surrounded.

The first thing to be considered was the keyhole. That must be unstopped
at once. Fumbling in my bag-for I had grown of a sudden niggardly with my
matches-I found a good-sized probe, which I insinuated into the keyhole;
and, in a moment, my hopes in that direction were extinguished. For the
end of the probe impinged upon metal. The keyhole was not stopped with
rag, but with a plate of metal fixed on the outside. With rapidly-growing
alarm, but with a tidiness born of habit, I put the probe back in the bag
and began feverishly to review the situation and consider my resources.
And then I had an idea; only a poor, forlorn hope, but still an idea.

There is a certain ingenious type of pocket-knife, devised principally in
the interest of the cutlery trade, that innocent persons (usually of the
female persuasion) are wont to bestow as presents on their masculine
friends. Such a knife I chanced to possess. It had been given to me by an
aunt, and sentimental considerations had induced me to give it an amount
of room in my trousers' pocket that I continually grudged. However, there
it was at this critical moment, with its corkscrew, gimlet, its
bewildering array of blades, its hoof-pick, tooth-pick, tweezers, file,
screw-driver and assorted unclassifiable tools; a ponderous lump of
pocket-destroying uselessness--and yet, the appointed means of saving my
life.

The gimlet was the first tool that I called into requisition. Very
gingerly--for these tools are commonly over-tempered and brittle--I bored
in the thick plank a hole at about the level of my mouth; and as I worked
I turned over my further plans. When the gimlet was through the door, I
selected a tool on whose use I had often speculated--a sharp-edged spike,
like a diminutive and very stumpy bayonet--which I proceeded to use
broach-wise to enlarge the hole. When this tool worked loose, I exchanged
it for the screwdriver, with which I managed to broach the hole out to
about half an inch in width. And this was as large as I could make it,
and it was not large enough. True, one could breathe fairly comfortably
through a half-inch hole, but, with the deadly gas circulating around, a
freer opening was very desirable.

Then I bethought me that the magic knife contained a saw-a wretched,
thick-bladed affair, but still a saw-which would actually cut wood if you
gave it time. This implement suggested a simple plan which I forthwith
put into execution, working as rapidly as I could without running the
risk of breaking the tools. My plan was to make a second hole some two
inches diagonally below the first, and from each hole to carry two
saw-cuts at right angles to one another. The two pairs of cuts would
intersect and take a square piece out of the door, giving me a little
window through which I could breathe in comfort.

It was a trifling task, but yet, with the miserable tools I had, it took
a considerable time to execute; the more since the saw-blade was wider
than the holes, excepting at its point. However, it was accomplished at
last, and I had the satisfaction of pushing out the little separated
square of wood and feeling that I now had free access to the pure air
outside my dungeon.

But it was none too soon. As I rested from my labours, it occurred to me
to test the condition of the air inside. Lighting a wax match, I held the
little taper so that the flame ascended steadily, and then lowered it
slowly. As it descended the flame changed colour somewhat, and about
eighteen inches from the floor it went out quite suddenly. There was,
then, a layer of the pure gas about eighteen inches deep covering the
floor, and, no doubt, rising pretty rapidly.

This was rather startling, and it warned me to have recourse without
delay to my breathing hole. For though carbonic acid gas behaves somewhat
as a liquid, it is not a liquid: like other gases, it has the power of
diffusing upwards, and the air of the cellar must be already getting
unsafe. Accordingly, after carefully wiping the surface of the door with
my handkerchief, I applied my mouth, with some distaste, to the opening
and took in a deep draught of undoubtedly pure air.

The position in which I had to stand with my mouth to the hole was an
irksome one, and I foresaw that it would presently become very fatiguing.
Moreover, when the gas reached the level of my head, it would be
difficult to prevent some of it from finding its way into my mouth and
nostrils; and if it did, I should most assuredly be poisoned. This
consideration suggested the necessity of making another hole at a lower
level to let out the gas and allow me to rest myself by a change of
position. But this new task had to be carried out with my mouth glued to
the breathing hole; and very awkward and tiring I found it and very slow
was the progress that I made. This second hole was smaller than the
first, for time was precious, and I reflected that I could easily enlarge
it by fresh saw-cuts, each two of which would take out a triangular piece
of wood.

But it was tedious work, and its completion left me with aching arms;
indeed, I was beginning to ache all over from the constrained position.
Taking a deep breath and shutting my mouth, I stood up and stretched
myself. Then I lit a match and looked at my watch. Half-past eight. I had
been over two hours in the cellar. And meanwhile the patients were
waiting for me at the surgery, and, no doubt, murmuring at the delay. How
soon would my absence lead to enquiries? Or were enquiries being made
even now?

Looking at the match that I still held in my hand, I noticed that its
flame was pallid and bluish; and as I lowered it slowly, it went out when
it was a little over two feet from the floor. The gas, then, was still
rising, though not so rapidly as I, had feared, but from the altered
colour of the flame, it was evident that the air of the cellar,
generally, contained enough diffused gas to be actively poisonous.

After a time, the erect position began to grow insupportably fatiguing. I
felt that I must sit down for a few minutes' rest, even though prudence
whispered that it was highly unsafe. I struggled for awhile, but
eventually, conquered by fatigue, sat down on the floor with my mouth
applied closely to the lower breathing-hole. I persuaded myself that I
would sit only just long enough to recover some of my strength, but
minute after minute sped by and still I felt an unaccountable reluctance
to rise.

Suddenly I because conscious of a vague feeling of drowsiness; of a
desire to lean back against the wall and doze. It was only slight, but
its significance was so appalling that I scrambled to my feet in a panic,
and, putting my mouth to the upper breathing-hole, took several deep
inspirations. But I soon realized that the upright position was
impossible. The drowsy feeling continued and there was growing with it a
lassitude and weakness of the limbs that threatened to leave me only the
choice between sitting or falling. A wave of furious anger swept over me
and roused me a little; a burst of hatred of the cowardly wretch who had
decoyed me, as I now suspected, to my death. Then this feeling passed and
was succeeded by chilly fear, and I sank down once more into a sitting
position with my mouth pressed to the lower opening.

The time ran on unreckoned by me. Gradually, by imperceptible degrees, my
mental state grew more and yet more sluggish. Anger and fear and
ever-dwindling hope flitted by turns across the slowly-fading field of my
consciousness. Intervals of quiet indifference--almost of placid
comfort--began to intervene, with increasing lassitude and a growing
desire for rest. To lie down; that was what I wanted. To lay my head upon
the stony floor and sink into sweet oblivion.

At last I must have actually dozed, though, fortunately, without removing
my mouth from the breathing-hole, for I had no sense of the passage of
time, when I was suddenly aroused by the loud and continuous jangling of
a bell.

I listened with a sort of dull eagerness and keeping awake with a
conscious effort.

The bell pealed wildly and without a pause for what seemed to me quite a
long time.

Then it ceased, and again my consciousness began to grow dim. After an
interval, I know not how long, there came to me dimly and only
half-perceived, the closing of a door, the patter of quick footsteps, and
then the voice of a man calling me by name.

I struggled to get on to my feet, but could not move. But I still held
the clasp-knife and was able to rap with it feebly on the door. Again I
heard the voice--it sounded nearer now, and yet infinitely far away--and
again I rapped on the door and shouted through the breathing-hole; a
thin, muffled cry, such as one utters in a troubled dream. And then the
drowsiness crept over me again and I heard no more.

The next thing of which I was conscious was a sounding thwack on the
cheek with something wet that felt like a dead fish. I opened my eyes and
looked vaguely into two faces that were close to mine and seemed to be
lighted by a lamp or candle. The faces were somehow familiar, but yet I
failed clearly to recognize them, and, after staring stupidly for a few
moments, I began to doze again. Then the dead fish returned to the
assault and I again opened my eyes. Another vigorous flop caused me to
open my mouth with an unparliamentary gasp. "Ah! That's better," said a
familiar and yet "unplaced " voice. "When a man is able to swear, he is
fairly on the road to recovery." Flop!

The renewed attentions of the dead fish (which turned out, later, to be
merely a wet towel) evoked further demonstrations on my part of
progressing recovery, accompanied by a nervous titter in a female voice.
Gradually the clouds rolled away, and to my returning consciousness, the
faces revealed themselves as those of Maggie, the housemaid, and Dr.
Thorndyke. Even to my muddled wits, the presence of the latter was
somewhat of a puzzle, and, in the intervals of anathematizing the
deceased fish--which I had not yet identified--I found myself hazily
speculating on the problem of how my revered teacher came to be in this
place, and what place this was. "Come, now, Jardine," said Dr. Thorndyke,
emptying a jug of water on my face, and receiving a volley of spluttered
expletives in exchange, "pull yourself together. How did you get in that
cellar?"

"Hang' 'f I know," said I, composing myself for another nap. But here the
wet towel came once more into requisition, and that with such vigour
that, in a fit of exasperation, I eat up and yawned. "I think you'd
better fetch a cab," said Thorndyke, as Maggie wrung out the towel
afresh; "but leave the gate open when you go out."

"Wasser cab for?" I asked sulkily. "Can't I walk?"

"If you can, it will be better," said Thorndyke. "Let us see if you are
able to stand." He hoisted me on to my feet and he and Maggie, taking
each an arm, walked me slowly up and down the cobbled yard, which I now
began to recognize as appertaining to the Mineral Water Works. At first I
staggered very drunkenly, but by degrees the drowsy feeling wore off and
I was able to walk with Thorndyke's assistance only. "I think we might
venture out now," said he, at length, piloting me towards the gate, and
when I had stumbled rather awkwardly through the wicket, we set forth
homeward.

On my arrival home, Thorndyke ordered a supply of strong coffee and a
light meal, after which--it being obvious that I was good for nothing in
a professional sense, he suggested that I should go to bed. "Don't worry
about the practice," said he. "I will send for my friend Jervis, and,
between us, we will see that everything is looked after. If Maggie will
give me a sheet of paper and an envelope I will write a note to him; and
then she can take a hansom to my chambers and give the note either to Dr.
Jervis or my man Polton. Meanwhile, I will stay here and see that you
don't go to sleep prematurely."

He wrote the note; and Maggie, having made such improvements in her
outward garb as befitted the status of a rider in hansoms, took charge of
it and departed with much satisfaction and dignity. Thorndyke made a few
enquiries of me as to the circumstances that had led to my incarceration
in the cellar, but finding that I knew no more than Maggie--whom he had
already questioned--he changed the subject; nor would he allow me again
to refer to it. "No, Jardine," he said. "Better think no more of it for
the present. Have a good night's rest and then, if you are all right in
the morning, we will go into the matter and see if we can put the puzzle
together."

CHAPTER VI

A COUNCIL OF WAR

I AWOKE somewhat late on the following morning; indeed, I was but half
awake when there came a somewhat masterful and peremptory tap at my
bedroom door, followed by the appearance in the room of a rather tall
gentleman of some thirty years of age. I should have diagnosed him
instantly as a doctor by his self-possessed, proprietary manner of
entering, but he left me no time for guessing as to his identity.
"Good-morning, Jardine," he said briskly, jingling the keys and small
change in his trousers' pockets, "my name is Jervis. Second violin in the
Thorndyke orchestra. I'm in charge here pro tem. How are you feeling?"

"Oh, I'm all right. I was just going to get up. You needn't trouble about
the practice. I'm quite fit."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Jervis, "but you'd better keep quiet all the
same. My orders are explicit, and I know my place too well to disobey.
Thorndyke's instructions were that you are not to make any visits or go
abroad until after the inquest."

"Inquest?" I exclaimed.

"Yes. He's coming here at four o'clock to hold an inquiry into the
circumstances that led to your being locked up in a cellar, and until
then I'm to look after the practice and keep an eye on you. What time do
you expect the offspring of the flittermouse?"

"Who?" I demanded.

"Batson. He's coming back to-day, isn't he?"

"Yes. About six o'clock to-night."

"Then you'll be able to clear out. So much the better. The neighbourhood
doesn't seem very wholesome for you."

"I suppose I can do the surgery work," said I.

"You'd better not. Better follow Thorndyke's instructions literally. But
you can tell me about the patients and help me to dispense. And that
reminds me that a person named Samway called just now, a rather
fine-looking woman--reminded me of a big, sleek tabby cat. She wouldn't
say what she wanted. Do you know anything about her?"

"I expect she came about her account. But she'll have to see Batson. I
told her so, only a night or two ago."

"Very well," said Jervis, "then I'll be off now, and you take things easy
and just think over what happened last night, so as to be ready for
Thorndyke."

With this he bustled away, leaving me to rise and breakfast at my
leisure.

His advice to me to think over the events of the previous night was
rather superfluous. The experience was not one that I was likely to
forget. To have escaped from death by the very slenderest chance was in
itself a matter to occupy one's thoughts pretty completely, apart from
the horrible circumstances, and then there was the mystery in which the
whole affair was enveloped, a mystery which utterly baffled any attempt
to penetrate it. Turn it over as I would--and it was hardly out of my
thoughts for a minute at a time all day--no glimmer of light could I
perceive, no faintest clue to any explanation of that hideous and
incomprehensible crime.

At four o'clock punctually to the minute, Dr. Thorndyke arrived, and,
having quickly looked me over to see that I was none the worse for my
adventure, proceeded to business. "Have you finished the visits, Jervis?"
he asked.

"Yes; and sent off all the medicine. There's nothing more to do until
six."

"Then," said Thorndyke, "we might have a cup of tea in the
consulting-room and talk this affair over. I am rather taking possession
of you, Jardine," he added, "but I think we ought to see where we are
quite clearly, even if we decide finally to hand the case over to the
police. Don't you agree with me?"

"Certainly," I agreed, highly flattered by the interest he was taking in
my affairs; "naturally, I should like to get to the bottom of the
mystery."

"So should I," said he, "and to that end, I propose that you give us a
completely circumstantial account of the whole affair. I have had a talk
with your very intelligent little maid, Maggie, and now I want to hear
what happened after she left you."

"I don't think I have much to tell that you don't know," said I;
"however, I will take up the story where Maggie left off," and I
proceeded to describe the events in detail, much as I have related them
to the reader.

Thorndyke listened to my story with profound attention, making an
occasional memorandum but not uttering a word until I had finished. Then,
after a rapid glance through his memoranda, he said: "You spoke of a note
that was handed in to you. Have you got that note?"

"I left it on the writing-table, and it is probably there still. Yes,
here it is." I brought it over to the little table on which our tea was
laid and handed it to him; and as he took it from me with the dainty
carefulness of a photographer handling a wet plate, I noted mentally that
the habit of delicate manipulation contracted in the laboratory makes
itself evident in the most trifling of everyday actions.

"I see," he remarked, turning the envelope over and scrutinizing it
minutely, "that this is addressed to 'Dr. H. Jardine.' It appears, then,
that he knows your Christian name. Can you account for that?"

"No, I can't. The only letter I have had here was addressed 'Dr.
Jardine', and I have signed no certificates or other documents."

He made a note of my answer, and, drawing the missive from its envelope,
read it through. "The handwriting," he remarked, " looks disguised rather
than illiterate, and the diction is inconsistent. The blatantly incorrect
adverb at the end does not agree with the rest of the phraseology and the
correct punctuation. As to the signature, we may neglect that, unless you
are acquainted with anyone in these parts of the name of Parker."

"I am not," said I.

"Very well. Then if you will allow me to keep this note, I will file it
for future reference. And now I will ask you a few questions about this
adventure of yours, which is really a most astonishing and mysterious
affair; even more mysterious, I may add, than it looks at the first
glance. But we shall come to that presently. At the moment we are
concerned with the crime itself-with a manifest attempt to murder you-and
the circumstances that led up to it; and there are certain obvious
questions that suggest themselves. The first is: Can you give any
explanation of this attempt on your life?"

"No, I can't," I replied. "It is a complete mystery to me. I can only
suppose that the fellow was a homicidal lunatic."

"A homicidal lunatic," said Thorndyke, "is the baffled investigator's
last resource. But we had better not begin supposing at this stage. Let
us keep strictly to facts. You do not know of anything that would explain
this attack on you?"

"No."

"Then the next question is: Had you any property of value on your
person?"

"No. Five pounds would cover the value of everything I had about me,
including the instruments."

"Then that seems to exclude robbery as a motive. The next question is:
Does any person stand to benefit considerably by your death? Have you any
considerable expectations in the way of bequests, reversions or
succession to landed property or titles?"

"No," I replied with a faint grin. "I shall come in for a thousand or two
when my uncle dies, but I believe the London Hospital is the alternative
legatee, and I suppose we would hardly suspect the hospital governors of
this little affair. Otherwise, the only person who would benefit by my
death would be the undertaker who got the contract to plant me."

Thorndyke nodded and made a note of my answer. "That," said he "disposes
of the principal motives for premeditated murder. There remains the
question of personal enmity--not a common motive in this country. Have
you, as far as you know, an enemy or enemies who might conceivably try to
kill you?"

"As far as I know, I have not an enemy in the world, or anyone, even, who
would wish to do me a bad turn."

"Then," said Thorndyke, " that seems to dispose of all the ordinary
motives for murder; and I may say that I have only put these questions as
a matter of routine precaution-ex abundantia cautelae, as Jervis says,
when he is in a forensic mood--because certain other facts which I have
learned seem to exclude any of these motives except, perhaps, robbery
from the person."

"You haven't been long picking up those other facts," remarked Jervis.
"Why the affair only happened last night."

"I have only made a few simple enquiries," replied Thorndyke. "This
morning I called on Mr. Highfield, whose name, as solicitor and agent to
the landlords, I copied from the notice on the gate at the works last
night. He knows me slightly so I was able to get from him the information
that I wanted. It amounts to this.

"About four months ago, a Mr. Gill wrote to him and offered a lump sum
for the use of the mineral water works for six months. Highfield accepted
the offer and drew up an agreement, as desired, granting Gill immediate
possession of the premises and the small stock and plant, of which the
residue was to be taken back at a valuation by the landlords at the
expiration of the term.

"I noted Gill's address, as it appeared on the agreement, and sent my
man, Polton, to make enquiries.

"The address is that of a West Kensington lodging house at which Gill was
staying when he signed the agreement. He had been there only three weeks,
he left two days after the date of the agreement and the landlady does
not know where he went or anything about him."

"Sounds a bit fishy," Jervis remarked. "Did he tell Highfield what he
wanted the premises for?"

"I understood that something was said about some assay work in connection
with certain--or rather uncertain--mineral concessions. But of course
that was no affair of Highfield's. His business was to get the rent, and,
having got it, his interest in Mr. Gill lapsed. But you see the bearing
of these facts. Gill's connection with these works does, as Jervis says,
look a little queer, especially after what has happened. But, seeing that
he made his arrangements four months ago, at a time when Jardine had no
thought of coming into this neighbourhood, it is clear that those
arrangements could have no connection with this particular attempt. Gill
obviously did not take those works with the intention of murdering
Jardine. He took them for some other purpose; quite possibly the purpose
that he stated. And we must not assume that Gill was the perpetrator of
this outrage at all. Could you identify the man who let you in?"

"No," I replied. "Certainly not. I hardly saw him at all. The place was
pitch dark, and whenever he struck a match he was either behind me or in
front with his back to me. The only thing I could make out about him was
that he had some sort of coarse wash-leather gloves on."

"Ha!" exclaimed Thorndyke. "Then we were right, Jervis."

I looked in surprise from one to the other of my friends, and was on the
point of asking Thorndyke what he meant, when he continued. "That closes
another track. If you couldn't identify the man, a description of Gill,
if we could obtain it, would not help us. We must begin at some other
point."

"It seems to me," said Jervis, "that we haven't much to go upon at all."

"We haven't much," agreed Thorndyke, "but still we have something. We
find that the motive of this attempt was apparently not robbery, nor the
diversion of inheritable property, nor personal enmity. It must have been
premeditated, but yet it could not have been planned more than a week in
advance, for Jardine has only been in this neighbourhood for that time,
and his coming was unexpected. The appearances very strongly suggest that
the motive, whatever it was, has been generated recently and probably
locally. So we had better make a start from that assumption."

"Is it possible," Jervis suggested, "that this man Gill may be some sort
of anarchist crank? Or a sort of thug? It is actually conceivable that he
may have taken these premises for the express purpose of having a secure
place where he could perpetrate murders and conceal the bodies."

"It is quite conceivable," said Thorndyke, "and when we go and look over
the works--which I propose we do presently--we may as well bear the
possibility in mind. But it is merely a speculative suggestion. To return
to your affairs, Jardine, has your stay here been quite uneventful?"

"Perfectly," I replied.


"No unusual or obscure cases? No injuries?"

"No, nothing out of the common," I replied.

"No deaths?"

"One. But the man died before I took over."

"Nothing unusual about that? Everything quite regular?"

"Oh, perfectly," I answered; and then with a sudden qualm, as I recalled
Batson's uncertainty as to the actual cause of death, I added, "At least
I hope so."

"You hope so?" queried Thorndyke. "Yes. Because it's too late to go into
the question now. The man was cremated."

At this a singular silence fell. Both my friends seemed to stiffen in
their chairs, and both looked at me silently but very attentively. Then
Thorndyke asked, "Did you have anything to do with that case?"

"Yes," I replied. "I went with Batson to examine the body."

"And are you perfectly satisfied that everything was as it should be?"

I was on the point of saying "yes." And then suddenly there arose before
my eyes the vision of Mrs. Samway looking at me over Batson's shoulder
with that strange, inscrutable expression. And again, I recalled her
unexplained anger and then her sudden change of mood. It had impressed me
uncomfortably at the time, and it impressed me uncomfortably now. "I
don't know that I am, now that I come to think it over," I replied.

"Why not?" asked Thorndyke. "Well," I said, a little hesitatingly, "to
begin with, I don't think the cause of death was quite clear, Batson
couldn't find anything definite when he attended the man, and I know that
the patient's death came as quite a surprise."

"But surely," exclaimed Thorndyke, "he took some measures to find out the
cause of death!"

"He didn't. He assumed that it was a case of fatty heart and certified it
as 'Morbus cordis'; and a man named O'Connor confirmed his certificate
after examining the body."

"After merely inspecting the exterior?"

"Yes."

My two friends looked at one another significantly, and Thorndyke
remarked, with a disapproving shake of the head: "And this is what all
the elaborate precautions amount to in practice. A case which might have
been one of the crudest and baldest poisoning gets passed with hardly a
pretence of scrutiny. And so it will always be. Routine precautions
against the unsuspected are no precautions at all. That is the danger of
cremation. It restores to the poisoner the security that he enjoyed in
the old days when there were no such sciences as toxicology and organic
chemistry, when it was impossible for him to be tripped up by an
exhumation and an analysis."

"You don't think it likely that this was a case of poisoning, do you?" I
asked.

"I know nothing about the case," he replied, "excepting that there was
gross neglect in issuing the certificates. What do you think about it
yourself? Looking back at the case, is there anything besides the
uncertainty that strikes you as unsatisfactory?"

I hesitated, and again the figure of Mrs. Samway rose before me with that
strange, baleful look in her eyes. Finally I described the incident to my
colleagues. "Mrs. Samway!" exclaimed Jervis. "Is that the handsome
Lucrezia Borgia lady with the mongoose eyes who called here this morning?
By Jove! Jardine, you are giving me the creeps."

"I understand," said Thorndyke, "that you were making as if to feel the
dead man's pulse?"

"Yes."

"There is no doubt, I suppose, that he really was dead?"

"None whatever. He was as cold as a fish, and, besides there was quite
distinct rigor mortis."

"That seems conclusive enough," said Thorndyke, but he continued to gaze
at his open note-book with a profoundly speculative and thoughtful
expression.

"It certainly looks," said Jervis, "as if Jardine had either seen
something or had been about to see something that he was not wanted to
see; and the question is what that something could have been."

"Yes," I agreed, gloomily; "that is what I have just been asking myself.
There might have been a wound or injury of some kind, or there might have
been the marks of a hypodermic needle on the wrist. I wish I knew what
she meant by looking at me in that way."

"Well," said Jervis, "we shall never know now. The grave gives up its
secrets now and again, but the crematorium furnace never. Whether he died
naturally or was murdered, Mr. Maddock is now a little heap of ashes with
no message for anyone this side of the Day of Judgment."

Thorndyke looked up. "That seems to be so," said he, "and really, we have
no substantial reasons for thinking that there was anything wrong. So we
come back to your own affairs, Jardine, and the question is, What would
you prefer to do?"

"In what respect?" I asked.

"In regard to this attempt on your life. You have told us that you have
not an enemy in the world. But it appears as if you had; and a very
dangerous one, too. Now would you like to put the case into the hands of
the police, or would you rather that we kept our own counsel and looked
into it ourselves?"

"I should like you to decide that," said I.

"The reason that I ask," said Thorndyke, "is this: the machinery of the
police is adjusted to professional crime--burglary, coining, forgery, and
so forth--and their methods are mostly based on 'information received.'
The professional 'crook' is generally well known to the police, and, when
wanted for any particular 'job,' can be found without much difficulty and
the information necessary for his conviction obtained from the usual
sources. But in cases of obscure, non-professional crime the police are
at a disadvantage. The criminal is unknown to them; there are no
confederates from whom to get information; consequently they have no
starting-point for their enquiries. They can't create clues; and they,
very naturally, will not devote time, labour and money to cases in which
they have nothing to go on.

"Now this affair of yours does not look like a professional crime. No
motive is evident and you can give no information that would help the
police. I doubt if they would do much more than give you some rather
disagreeable publicity, and they might even suspect you of some kind of
imposture."

"Gad!" I exclaimed. "That's just what they would do. It's what they did
last time, and this affair would write me down in their eyes a confirmed
mystery-monger."

"Last time?" queried Thorndyke. "What last time is that? Have there been
any other attempts?"

"Not on me," I replied. "But I had an adventure one night about six or
seven weeks ago that has made the Hampstead police look on me, I think,
with some suspicion"; and here I gave my two friends a description of my
encounter with the dead (or insensible) cleric in Millfield Lane, and my
discoveries on the following morning.

"But my dear Jardine!" Thorndyke exclaimed when I had finished, "what an
extraordinary man you are! It seems as if you could hardly show your nose
out of doors without becoming involved in some dark and dreadful
mystery."

"Well," said I, "I hope I have now exhausted my gifts in that respect. I
am not thirsting for more experiences. But what do you think about that
Hampstead affair? Do you think I could possibly have been mistaken? Could
the man have been merely insensible, after all, as the police suggested?"

Thorndyke shook his head. "I don't think," he replied, "that it is
possible to take that view. You see the man had disappeared. Now he could
not have got away unassisted, in fact he could not have walked at all.
One would have to assume that some persons appeared directly after you
left and carried him away; and that they appeared and retired so quickly
as not to be overtaken by you on your return a few minutes later with the
police. That is assuming too much. And then there are the traces which