A silent witness
rapidly; but the most singular phenomenon was, that when his eyes
strayed out of the carriage window, as they did at frequent intervals,
his lips went on sputtering with unabated rapidity. Quite suddenly he
appeared to come to the end of a sort of literary measured mile, for
even as his lips were still moving, he clapped in the book-mark, shut
the volume, and returned it to his pocket with a curious air of
business-like finality.
As his eyes were no longer occupied with the book, my observations had
to be suspended, and my attention was now turned to my own affairs.
Putting my hand in my coat pocket for my pipe and pouch, I became
aware of a state of confusion in the said pocket which I had already
noticed when making my purchases. The fact is, that I had nearly come
away from the barge without my portable property. It was only at the
last moment that the skipper, remembering the mug, had fetched it
hurriedly from the locker and shot its contents bodily into my coat
pocket. The present seemed a good opportunity for distributing the
various articles among their proper receptacles. Accordingly I turned
out the whole pocketful on the seat by my side, and a remarkably
miscellaneous collection they formed; comprising knives, pencils,
match-box, keys, the minor implements of my craft, and various other
objects, useful and useless, including the little gold reliquary.
My neighbour opposite was, I think, quite interested in my
proceedings, though he kept up a dignified pretence of being entirely
unaware of my existence. Only for a while, however. Suddenly he sat
up, very wide awake, and slewing his head round, stared with
undisguised intentness at my little collection. I guessed at once what
it was that had attracted his attention. A cleric would not be
thrilled by the sight of a clinical thermometer or an ophthalmoscope.
It was the reliquary that had caught his eye. That was an article in
his own line of business.
With deliberate mischief, I left the little bauble exposed to view as
I very slowly and methodically conveyed the other things one by one,
each to its established pocket. Last of all, I picked up the reliquary
and held it irresolutely as if debating where I should stow it. And at
this point His Reverence intervened, unable any longer to contain his
curiosity.
“Zat is a very remargable liddle opchect, sir,” he said in excellent
Anglo-German. “Might one bresume to ask vat its use is?”
I handed the reliquary to him and he took it from me with
ill-disguised eagerness.
“I understand,” said I, “that it is a reliquary. But you probably know
more about such things than I do. I haven’t opened it so I can’t say
what is inside.”
He nodded gravely. “Zo! I am glad to hear you zay zat. Brobably zere
is inside some holy relic vich ought not to be touched egzepting by
bious handts.” He turned the case over, and, putting on a pair of
spectacles--which he had not appeared to require for reading--closely
scrutinized the inscriptions, and even the wisp of cord that remained
attached to one of the rings.
“You zay,” he resumed without raising his eyes, “zat you understandt
zat zis is a reliquary. Do you not zen know? Ze berson who gafe it to
you, did he not tell you vat it gondained?”
“It wasn’t given to me at all,” I replied. “In fact, it isn’t properly
mine. I picked it up and am merely keeping it until I find the owner.”
He pondered this statement with a degree of profundity that seemed
rather out of proportion to its matter; and he continued to gaze at
the reliquary, never once raising his eyes to mine. At length, after a
considerable pause and a most unnecessary amount of reflection, he
asked:
“Might one ask, if you shall bardon my guriosity, vere you found zis
liddle opchect?”
I hesitated before replying. My first, and natural, impulse was to
tell him exactly where and under what circumstances I had found the
“opchect.” But the way in which my information had been received by
the police had made me rather chary of offering confidences; besides
which, I had half promised them not to talk about the affair. And,
after all, it was no business of this good gentleman’s where I found
it. My answer was, therefore, not very explicit.
“I picked it up in a lane at Hampstead, near London.”
“At Hampstead!” he repeated. “Zo! Zat would be--a--very good blace to
find such sings. I mean,” he added, hastily, “zere are many beople in
zat blace and some of zem will be of ze old religion.”
Now, this last remark was such palpable nonsense that it set me
speculating on what he had intended to say, for it was obvious that he
had altered his mind in the middle of the sentence and completed it
with the first words that came to hand. However, as I could read no
sense into it at all, I said that “perhaps he was right,” which seemed
an eminently safe rejoinder to an unintelligible statement.
When he had finished his minute examination of the reliquary, he
handed it back to me with such evident reluctance that, if it had been
mine, I should have been tempted to ask him to accept it. But it was
not mine. I was only a trustee. So I made no remark, but watched him
as he, very deliberately, took off his spectacles and returned them to
their case, looking meanwhile, at the floor with an air of deep
abstraction. He appeared to be thinking hard, and I was quite curious
as to what his next remark would be. A considerable interval elapsed
before he spoke again; but at last the remark came, in the form of a
question, and very disappointing it was.
“You are not berhaps very much interested in relics and reliquaries?”
As a matter of fact, I didn’t care two straws for either the one or
the other; but there was no need to put it as strongly as that.
“We are apt,” I replied, “to find a lack of interest in subjects of
which we are ignorant.” (That was a fine sentence. It might have come
straight out of Sandford and Merton.)
“Zat is vat I sink, too,” he rejoined. “Ve do not know; ve do not
care. But zere is a very egsellent liddle book vich egsplains all ze
gustoms and zeremonies gonnected vid relics of ze zaints. I should
like you to read zat book. Vill you bermit me to send you a gobby vich
I haf?”
Of course I said I should be delighted. It was an outrageous
falsehood, but what else could I say?
“Zen,” said he, “I shall haf great pleasure in zending it to you if
you vill kindly tell me how I shall address it.”
I presented him with my card, which he read very attentively before
bestowing it in his pocket-book.
“I see,” he remarked, “zat you are a doctor of medecine. It is a fine
brofession, if one does not too much vorget ze spiritual life in
garing for zat of ze body.”
In this I acquiesced vaguely, and the conversation drifted into
detached commonplaces, finally petering out as we approached Paddock
Wood; where my reverend acquaintance bought a newspaper and underwent
a total eclipse behind it.
As soon as the train started again, I took up my own paper; and the
very first glance at it gave me a shock of surprise that sent all
other matters clean out of my mind. It was an advertisement in the
column headed “Personal” that attracted my attention, an advertisement
that commenced with the word “Missing,” in large type, and went on to
offer Two Hundred Pounds Reward: thus:--
“MISSING. TWO HUNDRED POUNDS REWARD.
“Whereas, on the 14th inst., Dr. Humphrey Jardine disappeared from his
home and his usual places of resort; the above reward will be paid to
any person who shall give information as to his whereabouts, if alive,
or the whereabouts of his body if he is dead. He was last seen at
12.20 p.m. on the above date in the Hampstead Road, and was then
walking towards Euston Road. The missing man is about twenty-six years
of age; is somewhat over six feet in height; of medium complexion; has
brown hair, grey eyes, straight nose and a rather thin face, which is
clean-shaved. He was wearing a dark tweed suit, and soft felt hat.
“Information should be given to Hector Brodribb, Esquire, 65, New
Square, Lincoln’s Inn, by whom the above reward will be paid.”
Here was a pretty state of affairs: It seemed that while I was
placidly taking events as they came; smoking the skipper’s tobacco and
bottom-fishing with young Ted; my escapade had been producing
somewhere a most almighty splash. I read the advertisement again, with
a self-conscious grin, and out of it there arose one or two rather
curious questions. In the first place, who the deuce was Hector
Brodribb? And what concern was I of his? And how came he to know that
I was walking down Hampstead Road at 12.20 on the 14th inst.?
I felt very little doubt it was actually Thorndyke who was tweaking
the strings of the Brodribbian puppet. But even this left the mystery
unsolved. For how did Thorndyke know? This was only the fifth day
after my disappearance, and it would seem that there had hardly been
time for exhaustive enquiries.
Then another highly interesting fact emerged. The only person who had
seen me walk away down Hampstead Road was Sylvia Vyne; whence it
followed that Thorndyke, or the mysterious Brodribb, had in some way
got into touch with her. And reflecting on this, the mechanism of the
enquiry came into view. The connecting-link was, of course, the
sketch. Thorndyke had, himself, left the canvas with Mr. Robinson, the
artist’s-colourman, and he must have called to enquire if I had
collected it. Then, he would have been told of my meeting with Miss
Vyne, and as she was a regular customer, Mr. Robinson would have been
able to give him her address. It was all perfectly simple, the only
remarkable feature being the extraordinary promptitude with which the
inquiry had been carried out. Which went to show how much more clearly
Thorndyke had realized the danger that surrounded me than I had
myself.
These various reflections gave me full occupation during the remainder
of the journey, extending themselves into consideration of how I
should act in the immediate future. My first duty was obviously to
report myself to Thorndyke without delay; after which, I persuaded
myself, it would be highly necessary for me personally to reassure the
fair, and, perhaps, anxious Sylvia. As to how this was to be managed,
I was not quite clear, and in spite of the most profound cogitation, I
had reached no conclusion when the train rumbled into Charing Cross
Station.
CHAPTER XII.
MISS VYNE
As I stepped out on to the platform with a valedictory bow to my
reverend fellow-passenger, my irresolution came to an end and my duty
became clear. I must, in common decency, report myself at once to
Thorndyke, seeing that he had been at so much trouble on my account.
His card, which he had given me, I had unfortunately--or perhaps
fortunately, as it turned out--left on the mantelpiece at my lodgings;
but I remembered that the address was King’s Bench Walk and assumed
that I should have no difficulty in finding the house. Nor had I, for,
as I entered the Temple by the Tudor Street gate--having overshot my
mark on the Embankment--I was almost immediately confronted by a fine
brick doorway surmounted by a handsome pediment and bearing legibly
painted on its jamb, “First pair, Dr. Thorndyke.”
I ascended the “first pair” of stairs, which brought me to an open oak
door, massive and iron-bound, and a closed inner door, on the brass
knocker of which I executed a flourish that would have done credit to
a Belgravian footman; whereupon the door opened and a small man of
sedate and clerical aspect regarded me with an air of mild enquiry.
“Is Dr. Thorndyke at home?” I asked.
“No, sir. He is at the hospital.”
“Dr. Jervis?”
“Is watching a case in the Probate Court. Perhaps you would like to