A silent witness
“It won’t be any trouble,” I said. “I shall quite enjoy a deliberate
and determined robbery. But where shall I send the spoil?”
She produced her card-case, and, selecting a card, handed it to me,
with a smile: “It seems, to me,” she said, “that I am inciting you to
robbery and acting as a receiver of stolen goods, but I suppose
there’s no harm in it, though I feel that I ought not to give you all
this trouble.”
I made the usual polite rejoinder as I took from her the little
magical slip of pasteboard that, in a moment, transformed her from a
stranger to an acquaintance, and gave her a local habitation and a
name. Before bestowing it in my pocket-book, I glanced at the neat
copper-plate and read the inscription: “Miss Sylvia Vyne. The
Hawthorns. North End.”
The effect of our conversation had answered my expectations. Her
agitation had passed off, the colour had come back to her cheeks, and,
in fact, she seemed quite recovered. Apparently she thought so
herself, for she rose, saying that she now felt well enough to walk
home, and held out her hand for the colour-box and stool.
“I think,” said I, “that if you won’t consider me intrusive, I should
like to see you safely out on to an inhabited road at least.”
“I shall accept your escort gratefully,” she replied, “as far as the
end of the lane, or farther if it is not taking you too much out of
your way.”
Needless to say, I would gladly have escorted so agreeable and winsome
a protegée from John o’ Groats to Land’s End and found it not out of
my way at all; and when she passed out of the gate into Hampstead
Lane, I clung tenaciously to the box and stool and turned towards “The
Spaniards” as though no such thing as a dismissal had ever been
contemplated. In fact, with the reasonable excuse of carrying the
impedimenta, I maintained my place by her side in the absence of a
definite congé; and so we walked together, talking quite easily,
principally about pictures and painting, until, in the pleasant little
hamlet, she halted by a garden gate, and, taking her possessions from
me, held out a friendly hand.
“Good-bye,” she said. “I can’t thank you enough for all your help and
kindness. I hope I have not been very troublesome to you.”
I assured her that she had been most amenable, and, when I had once
more cautioned her to avoid solitary places, we exchanged a cordial
hand-shake and parted, she to enter the pleasant, rustic-looking
house, and I to betake myself back to my lodgings, lightening the way
with much agreeable and self-congratulatory reflection.
CHAPTER IX.
THORNDYKE TAKES UP THE SCENT
At my lodgings, which I reached at an unconscionably late hour for
lunch, I found a little surprise awaiting me; a short note from Dr.
Thorndyke asking me if I should be at liberty early on the following
afternoon to show him the spot on which I had found the mysterious
body. Of course, I answered by return, begging him to come straight on
from the hospital to an early lunch, over which we could discuss the
facts of the case before setting out. Having dispatched my letter, I
called at the offices of the house agent who had the letting of the
cottage on the Heath, to see if he had duplicate keys. Fortunately he
had, and was willing to entrust them to me on the understanding that
they should be returned some time during the next day. I did not,
however, go on to the cottage, for it occurred to me that Thorndyke
would probably wish to visit the wood, and I could make my visit and
purloin the canvases then.
A telegram on the following morning informed me that Thorndyke would
be with me at twelve o’clock, and, punctually to the minute, he
arrived.
“I hope you don’t mind me swooping down on you in this fashion,” he
said, as the servant showed him into the room.
I assured him, very truthfully, that I was delighted to be honoured by
a visit from him, and he then proceeded to explain.
“You may wonder, Jardine, why I am busying myself about this case,
which is really no business of mine, or, at least, appears to be none;
but the fact is, that as a teacher and a practitioner of Medical
Jurisprudence, I find it advisable to look into any unusual cases. Of
course, there is always a considerable probability that I may be
consulted concerning any out of the way case; but, apart from that, I
have the ordinary specialist’s interest in anything remarkable in my
own speciality.”
“I should think,” said I, “that it would be well for me to give you
all the facts before we start.”
“Exactly, Jardine,” he replied, “that is what I want. Tell me all you
know about the affair and then we shall be able to test our
conclusions on the spot.”
He produced a large scale ordnance map, and, folding it under my
direction, so that it showed only the region in which we were
interested, he stood it up on the table against the water bottle,
where we could both see it, and marked on it with a pencil each spot
as I described it.
It is not necessary for me to record our conversation. I told him the
whole story as I have already told it to the reader, pointing out on
the map the exact locality where each event occurred.
“It’s a most remarkable case, Jardine,” was his thoughtful comment
when I had finished, “most remarkable; curiously puzzling and
inconsistent too. For you see that on the one hand, it looks like a
casual or accidental crime, and yet, on the other, strongly suggests
premeditation. No man, one would think, could have planned to commit a
murder in what is, after all, a public thoroughfare; and yet, the long
distance which the body seems to have been carried, and the apparently
selected hiding-place, seem to suggest a previously considered plan.”
“You think that there is no doubt that the man was really dead?” I
asked.
“Had you any doubt at the time yourself?”
“None at all,” I replied, “it was only the disappearance of the body,
and, perhaps, the sergeant’s suggestion, that made me think it
possible that I might have been mistaken.”
Thorndyke shook his head. “No, Jardine,” said he, “the man was dead.
We are safe in assuming that; and on that assumption our
investigations must be based. The next question is, how was the body
taken away? Did you measure the fence?”
“No, but I should say it is about seven feet high.”
“And what kind of fence is it? Are there any footholds?”
“I can show you exactly what the fence is like,” I answered. “That
sketch, which I have pinned up on the wall, was apparently painted
from the exact spot on which the body lay. That fence on the
right-hand side is the one under which I sheltered and is exactly like
the one over which the body seems to have been lifted.”
Thorndyke rose and walked over to the sketch, which I had fixed to the
wall with drawing-pins.
“Not a bad sketch, this, Jardine,” he remarked; “very smartly put in,
apparently mostly with the knife. Where did you get it?”
I had to confess that the canvas was unlawfully come by, and told him
how I had obtained it.
“You don’t know the artist’s name?” said Thorndyke, looking closely at
the sketch.
“No. In fact, I know nothing about him, excepting that he worked
mostly with a small painting-knife, and usually wore kid gloves.”
“You don’t mean that he worked in gloves?” said Thorndyke.
“So I am told,” said I. “I never saw him.”
“It’s very odd,” said Thorndyke. “I have heard of men wearing a glove
on the palette-hand to keep off the midges, and many men paint in
gloves in exceptionally cold weather. But this sketch seems to have
been painted in the summer.”
“I suppose,” said I, “the midges don’t confine their attentions to the
palette-hand. And after all, to a man who worked entirely with the
knife, a glove wouldn’t be really in the way.”
“No,” Thorndyke agreed, “that is true.” He looked closely at the
sketch, and even took out his pocket lens to help his vision, which
seemed almost unnecessary. It appeared that he was as much interested
in the unknown artist’s peculiar technique as was my friend, Miss
Sylvia Vyne.
“By the way,” said he, when he had resumed his seat at the table, “you
were telling me about some kind of gold trinket that you had picked up
at the foot of the fence. Shall we have a look at it?”
I fetched the little gold object from the dispatch box in which I had
locked it up, and handed it to him. He turned it over in his fingers,
read the letters that were engraved on it, and examined the little
piece of silk cord that was attached to one ring.
“There is no doubt,” said he, “as to the nature of this object, nor of
its connection with the dead man. This is evidently a reliquary, and
these initials engraved upon it bear out exactly your description of
the body. S.V.D.P. evidently means St. Vincent de Paul, who, as you
probably know, was a saint who was distinguished for his works of
charity. You have mentioned that the dead man wore a Roman collar,
with a narrow, dark stripe up the front. That means that he was the
lay-brother of some religious order, probably some philanthropic
order, to whom St. Vincent de Paul would be an object of special
devotion. The other letters, A.M.D.G., are the initials of the words
_Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam_--the motto of the Society of Jesus. But as
St. Vincent de Paul was not a Jesuit saint, the motto probably refers
to the owner of the reliquary, who may have been a Jesuit or a friend
of the Society. It was apparently attached--perhaps to the neck--by
this silk cord, which seems to have been frayed nearly through, and
probably broke when the body was drawn over the top of the fence.”
“I suppose I ought to have shown it to the police,” I said.
“I suppose you ought,” he replied, “but, as you haven’t, I think we
had better say nothing about it now.”
He handed it back to me, and I dropped it into my pocket, intending to
return it presently to the dispatch box. A few minutes later, we
sallied forth on our journey of exploration.
It is not necessary to describe this journey in detail since I have
already taken the reader over the ground more than once. We went, of
course, to the place where I had found the body and walked right
through to Hampstead Lane. Then we returned, and reconstituted the
circumstances of that eventful night, after which, I conducted
Thorndyke to the place where I assumed that the body had been lifted
over the fence.
“I suppose,” I said, “we must go round and pick up the track from the
other side.”
He looked up and down the lane and smiled. “Would your quondam
professor lose your respect for ever, Jardine, if you saw him climb
over a fence in a frock coat and a topper?”
“No,” I answered, “but it might look a little quaint if anyone else
saw you.”
“I think we will risk that,” he said. “There is no one about, and I
should rather like to try a little experiment. Would you mind if I
hoisted you over the fence? You are something of an out-size, but
then, so am I, too, which balances the conditions.”
Of course I had no objection, and, when we had looked up and down the
lane and listened to make sure that we had no observers, Thorndyke
picked me up, with an ease that rather surprised me, and hoisted me
above the level of the fence.
“Is it all clear on the other side?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered, “there’s no one in sight.”
“Then I want you to be quite passive,” he said, and with this, he
hoisted me up further until I hung with my own weight across the top
of the fence. Leaving me hanging thus, he sprang up lightly, and,
having got astride at the top, dropped down on the other side, when he
once more took hold of me and drew me over.
“It wasn’t so very difficult,” he said. “Of course, it would have been
more so to a shorter man, but, on the other hand, it is extremely
unlikely that the body was anything like your size and weight.”