A SILENT
WITNESS

BY R. AUSTIN FREEMAN
Author of The Red Thumb Mark,
The Eye of Osiris, etc.

New York
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
1929

[COPYRIGHT]

Published in U.S.A., 1929
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc.

CONTENTS

I. The Beginning of the Mystery

II. The Finding of the Reliquary

III. “Who is Sylvia?”

IV. Septimus Maddock, Deceased

V. The Lethal Chamber

VI. A Council of War

VII. An Unseen Enemy

VIII. “It’s an Ill Wind—”

IX. Thorndyke Takes up the Scent

X. The Unheeded Warning

XI. A Chapter of Accidents

XII. Miss Vyne

XIII. A Mysterious Stranger

XIV. A Lonely Woman

XV. Exit Dr. Jardine

XVI. Enter Father Humperdinck

XVII. The Palimpsest

XVIII. A Visitor from the States

XIX. Tenebrae

XX. The Hue and Cry

XXI. The Final Problem

XXII. Thorndyke Reviews the Case

A SILENT WITNESS

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 footprints 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 quatrefoils, 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 its 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 new-comer 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 sketch-book, 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 sunlight 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 the 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-box 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 skillfully 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 “back-hander,” 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 and 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 brachy-dactylous hand is another instance. The brachy-dactylia 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 duster, 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 all. Man’s dead. Message left half an hour ago. 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 conundrums. 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 Junoesque 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, cat-like 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 so 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 clock, 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 so,” 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 so 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. Parker.

“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 Samways’ 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 by-street, 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 in 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 was I 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.

But stay! 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 cogitations 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 closely 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 arose 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 liquefied carbonic acid, which are used by mineral water manufacturers for aërating the water. The miscreant (or lunatic) who had imprisoned me had turned on the taps, and the liquid was escaping and congealing into 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.