A silent witness
We now followed the track up to the wood, which we entered by an
opening in the fence, through which I assumed that the murderer had
probably passed. I conducted Thorndyke by the nearest route to the
boat-house, and, when he had thoroughly examined the place and made
notes of the points that appeared to interest him, I showed him the
way out by the turnstile.
It was here when we came in sight of the cottage that I bethought me
of my promise to Miss Vyne, and somewhat sheepishly explained the
matter to Thorndyke.
“It won’t take me a minute to go in and sneak the things,” I said
apologetically, and was proposing that he should walk on slowly, when
he interrupted me.
“I’ll come in with you,” said he. “There may be something else to
filch. Besides, I am rather partial to empty houses. There is
something quite interesting, I think, in looking over the traces of
recent occupation, and speculating on the personality and habits of
the late occupiers. Don’t you find it so?”
I said “Yes,” truthfully enough, for it was a feeling of this kind
that had first led me to look over the cottage. But my interest was
nothing to Thorndyke’s; for no sooner had I let him in at the front
door, than he began to browse about through the empty rooms and
passages, for all the world like a cat that has just been taken to a
new house.
“This was evidently the studio,” he remarked, as we entered the room
from which I had taken the canvas. “He doesn’t seem to have had much
of an outfit, as he appears to have worked on his sketching-easel; you
can see the indentations made by the toe-points, and there are no
marks of the castors of a studio easel. You notice, too, that he sat
on a camp-stool to work.”
It did not appear to me to matter very much what he had sat on, but I
kept this opinion to myself and watched Thorndyke curiously as he
picked up the empty paint tubes and scrutinized them one after the
other. His inquisitiveness filled me with amused astonishment. He
turned out the rubbish box completely, and having looked over every
inch of the discarded canvases, he began systematically to examine,
one by one, the pieces of paper on which the late resident had wiped
his palette-knife.
Having rolled up and pocketed the waste canvases, I expressed myself
as ready to depart.
“If you’re not in a hurry,” said Thorndyke, “I should like to look
over the rest of the premises.”
He spoke as though we were inspecting some museum or exhibition, and,
indeed, his interest and attention, as he wandered from room to room,
were greater than that of the majority of visitors to a public
gallery. He even insisted on visiting the little stable and
coach-house, and when he had explored them both, ascended the rickety
steps to the loft over the latter.
“I suppose,” said I, “this was the lumber room or store. Judging by
the quantity of straw it would seem as if some cases had been unpacked
here.”
“Probably,” agreed Thorndyke. “In fact, you can see where the cases
have been dragged along, and also, by that smooth indented line, where
some heavy metallic object has been slid along the floor. Perhaps if
we look over the straw, we may be able to judge what those cases
contained.”
It didn’t seem to me to matter a brass farthing what they contained,
but again I made no remark; and together we moved the great mass of
straw, almost handful by handful, from one end of the loft to the
other, while Thorndyke, not only examined the straw but even closely
scrutinized the floor on which it lay.
As far as I could see, all this minute and apparently purposeless
searching was entirely without result, until we were in the act of
removing the last armful of straw from the corner; and even then the
object that came to light did not appear a very remarkable one under
the circumstances, though Thorndyke seemed to find what appeared to me
a most unreasonable interest in it. The object was a pair of
canvas-pliers, which Thorndyke picked up almost eagerly and examined
with profound attention.
“What do you make of that, Jardine?” he asked, at length, handing the
implement to me.
“It’s a pair of canvas-pliers,” I replied.
“Obviously,” he rejoined, “but what do you suppose they have been used
for?”
I opined that they had been used for straining canvases, that being
their manifest function.
“But,” objected Thorndyke, “he would hardly have strained his canvases
up here. Besides, you will notice that they have, in fact, been used
for something else. You observe that the handles are slightly bent, as
if something had been held with great force, and if you look at the
jaws, you will see that that something was a metallic object about
three-quarters of an inch wide with sharp corners. Now, what do you
make of that?”
I looked at the pliers, inwardly reflecting that I didn’t care
twopence what the object was, and finally said that I would give it
up.
“The problem does not interest you keenly,” Thorndyke remarked with a
smile; “and yet it ought to, you know. However, we may consider the
matter on some future occasion. Meanwhile, I shall follow your
pernicious example and purloin the pliers.”
His interest in this complete stranger appeared to me very singular,
and it seemed for the moment to have displaced that in the mysterious
case which was the object of his visit to me.
“A strange, vagabond sort of man that artist must have been,” he
remarked, as we walked home across the Heath, “but I suppose one picks
up vagabond habits in travelling about the world.”
“Do you gather that he had travelled much, then?” I asked.
“He appears to have visited New York, Brussels and Florence, which is
a selection suggesting other travels.”
I was wondering vaguely how Thorndyke had arrived at these facts, and
was indeed about to ask him, when he suddenly changed the subject by
saying:
“I suppose, Jardine, you don’t wander about this place alone at
night?”
“I do sometimes,” I replied.
“Then I shouldn’t,” he said; “you must remember that a very determined
attempt has been made on your life, and it would be unreasonable to
suppose that it was made without some purpose. But that purpose is
still unaccomplished. You don’t know who your enemy is, and,
consequently, can take no precautions against him excepting by keeping
away from solitary places. It is an uncomfortable thought, but at
present, you have to remember that any chance stranger may be an
intending murderer. So be on your guard.”
I promised to bear his warning in mind, though I must confess his
language seemed to me rather exaggerated; and so we walked on,
chatting about various matters until we arrived at my lodgings.
Thorndyke was easily persuaded to come in and have tea with me, and
while we were waiting for its arrival, he renewed his examination of
the sketch upon the wall.
“Aren’t you going to have this strained on a stretcher?” he asked.
I replied “yes,” and that I intended to take it with me the next time
I went into town.
“Let me take it for you,” said Thorndyke. “I should like to show it to
Jervis to illustrate the route that we have marked on the map. Then I
can have it left at any place that you like.”
I mentioned the name of an artist’s-colourman in the Hampstead Road,
and, unpinning the canvas, rolled it up and handed it to him.
He took it from me and, rolling it up methodically and carefully,
bestowed it in his breast pocket. Then he brought forth the map, and,
as we drank our tea and talked over our investigations, we checked our
route on it and marked the position of the cottage. Shortly after tea
he took his leave, and I then occupied an agreeable half-hour in
composing a letter to Miss Vyne to accompany the loot from the
deserted house.
CHAPTER X.
THE UNHEEDED WARNING
Thorndyke’s warning, so emphatically expressed, ought to have been
alike unnecessary and effective. As a matter of fact, it was neither.
I suppose that to a young man, not naturally timorous, the idea of a
constantly lurking danger amidst the prosaic conditions of modern
civilization is one that is not readily accepted. At any rate, the
fact is that I continued to walk abroad by day and by night with as
much unconcern as if nothing unusual had ever befallen me. It was not
that the recollection of those horrible hours in the poisoned cellar
had in any way faded. That incident I could never forget. But I think,
that in the back of my mind, there still lingered the idea of a
homicidal lunatic; though that idea had been so scornfully rejected by
Thorndyke.
But before I describe the amazing experience by which I once more came
within a hair’s breadth of sudden and violent death, I must refer to
another incident; not because it seemed to be connected with that
alarming occurrence, but because it came first in the order of time,
and had its own significance later.
It was a couple of days after Thorndyke’s visit that I walked down the
Hampstead Road with the intention of fetching the sketch from the
artist’s-colourman’s. The shop was within a few hundred yards of Jacob
Street, and as I crossed the end of that street, I was just
considering whether I ought to look in on Batson, when a lady bowed to
me and made as if she would stop. It was Mrs. Samway. Of course, I
stopped and shook hands, and while I was making the usual polite
enquiries, I felt myself once more impressed with the unusualness of
the woman. Even in her dress she was unlike other women, though not in
the least eccentric or bizarre. At present, she was clothed from head
to foot in black; but a scarlet bird’s wing in the coquettish little
velvet toque, and a scarlet bow at her throat, gave an effect of
colour that, unusual as it was, harmonized completely and naturally
with her jet-black hair and her strange, un-English beauty.
“So you haven’t started for Paris yet,” I remarked.
“No,” she replied; “my husband has gone and may, perhaps, come back.
At any rate, I am staying in England for the present.”
“Then I may possibly have the pleasure of seeing you again,” I said,
and she graciously replied that she hoped it might be so, as we shook
hands and parted.
A few minutes later, in the artist’s-colourman’s shop, I had another
chance meeting and a more agreeable one. The proprietor had just
produced the sketch, now greatly improved in appearance by being
strained on a stretcher, when the glass door opened and a young lady
entered the shop. Imagine my surprise when that young lady turned out
to be none other than Miss Vyne.
“Well,” I exclaimed, as we mutually recognized each other, “what an
extraordinary coincidence!”
“I don’t see that it is very extraordinary,” she replied. “Most of the
Hampstead people come here because it’s the nearest place where you
can get proper artist’s materials. Is that the sketch you were telling
me about?”
“Yes,” I answered; “and it’s the pick of the loot. But it isn’t too
late to alter your mind. Say the word and it’s yours.”
“Well,” she replied, with a smile, “I am not going to say the word,
but I want to thank you for rescuing those other treasures for me.”
She had, as a matter of fact, already thanked me in a very pretty
little note, but I was not averse to her mentioning the subject again.
We stepped back to the door, and in the brighter light, looked at the
sketch together.
“It’s a pity,” she remarked, “that he handled it so carelessly before
the paint was hard. Those finger-marks wouldn’t matter a bit on a
brush-painted surface; but on the smooth knife-surface they are rather
a disfigurement.”
She placed the sketch in my hand, and I backed nearer to the glass
door to get a better light. Happening to glance up, I noticed that a
sudden and very curious change had come over her; a look of haughty
displeasure and even anger, apparently directed at somebody or