A silent witness
must come and see us again quite soon. I assure you my aunt is
positively pining for another conversation with you. Why shouldn’t you
drop in to-morrow and have tea with us?”
Now this very idea had already occurred to me, so I hastened to close
with the invitation; and then, as she retired up the path with another
“good-bye” and a wave of the hand, I turned away and walked back
towards the Heath.
For some minutes I strode on, across furzy hollows or over little
hills, traversed by sunken, sandy paths, occupying myself with
thoughts of the pleasant, friendly girl whom I had just left and
reflections on the strange events of the morning. Presently I mounted
a larger hill, on which was perched a little, old-fashioned house.
Skirting the wooden fence that enclosed it, I turned the corner and
saw before me, at a distance of some forty yards, a rough, rustic
seat. On that seat a woman was sitting; and somehow, when I looked at
her and noted the graceful droop of the figure, it was without any
feeling of surprise--almost that of realized expectation--that I
recognized Mrs. Samway.
CHAPTER XIV.
A LONELY WOMAN
If I had had any intention of avoiding Mrs. Samway, that intention
must inevitably have been frustrated, for her recognition was as
instantaneous as my own. Almost as I turned the corner, she looked up
and saw me; and a few moments later, she rose and advanced in my
direction, so that, to an onlooker it would have appeared as if we had
met by appointment. There was obviously nothing for it but to look as
pleased as I could manage at such short notice; which I did, shaking
her hand with hypocritical warmth.
“And I suppose, Dr. Jardine,” said she, “you are thinking what a very
odd coincidence it is that we should happen to meet here?”
“Oh, I don’t know that it is so very odd. I live about here and I
understood you to say that you often come up to the Heath. At any
rate, our last meeting was a good deal more odd.”
“Yes, indeed. But the truth is that this is not a coincidence at all.
I may as well confess that I came here deliberately with the intention
of waylaying you.”
This very frank statement took me aback considerably; so much so that
I could think of no appropriate remark beyond mumbling something to
the effect that “it was very flattering of her.”
“I have been trying,” she continued, “to get a few words with you for
some time past; but, although I have lurked in your line of march in
the most shameless manner, I have always managed to miss you. I
thought, from what you told me, that you passed Robinson’s shop on
your way to the hospital.”
“So I do,” I replied mendaciously; for I could hardly tell her that I
had lately taken to shooting up by-streets with the express purpose of
avoiding that particular stretch of pavement.
“It’s rather curious that I never happened to meet you there. However,
I didn’t, so, to-day, I determined to take the bull by the horns and
catch you here.”
This last statement, like the former ones, gave me abundant matter for
reflection. How the deuce had she managed to “catch me here”? I
supposed that she had seen Sylvia and me in the Hampstead Road and had
guessed that we were coming on to this neighbourhood. That was a case
of feminine intuition; which, like the bone-setter’s skill, is a
wonderful thing--when it comes off (and when it doesn’t one isn’t
expected to notice the fact). Then she had gone on ahead--still
guessing at our final destination--and kept us in sight while keeping
out of view herself. It was not so very easy to understand and not at
all comfortable to think of, for there was a disagreeable suggestion
that she had somehow ascertained Sylvia’s place of abode beforehand.
And yet--well, the whole affair was rather mysterious.
“You don’t ask why it was that I wanted to waylay you,” she said, at
length, as I made no comment on her last statement.
“There is an old saying,” I replied, “that one shouldn’t look a
gift-horse in the mouth.”
“That is very diplomatic,” she retorted with a laugh. “But I daresay
your knowledge of women makes the question unnecessary.”
“My knowledge of women,” said I, “might be put into a nutshell and
still leave plenty of room for the nut and a good, fat maggot
besides.”
“Then I must beware of you. The man who professes to know nothing of
women is the most deep and dangerous class of person. But there is one
item of knowledge that you seem to have acquired. You seem to know
that women like to have pretty things said to them.”
“If you call that knowledge,” said I, “you must apply the same name to
the mere blind impulse that leads a spider to spin a nice, symmetrical
web.”
She laughed softly and looked up at me with an expression of amused
reflection. “I am thinking,” she said, “what a very fine symmetrical
web you would spin if you were a spider.”
“Possibly,” I replied. “But it looks as if the rôle of bluebottle
were the one that is being marked out for me.”
“Oh! Not a bluebottle, Dr. Jardine. It doesn’t suit you at all. If you
must make a comparison, why not say a Goliath beetle, and have
something really dignified--and not so very inappropriate?”
“Well, then, a Goliath beetle, if you prefer it; not that he would
look very dignified, kicking his heels in the elegant web of the
superlatively elegant feminine spider.”
“Oh, but that isn’t pretty of you at all, Dr. Jardine. In fact it is
quite horrid; and unfair, too; because you are trying to get the
information without asking a direct question.”
“What question am I supposed to ask?”
“You needn’t ask any. I will take pity on your masculine pride and
tell you why I have been lying in wait for you, although I daresay you
have guessed. The truth is, I am simply devoured by curiosity.”
“Concerning what?”
“Now, how can you ask? Just think! One day I meet you in the Hampstead
Road, going about your ordinary business, apparently a fixture, at
least for months. A few days later, a hundred miles from London, I
feel myself suddenly seized from behind; I turn round and there are
you with tragedy and adventure written large all over you.”
“I thought the tragedy was rather on your side; and so did the ancient
mariner with the black bottle and the tea cup. But--”
“I don’t wish to discuss the views of that well-meaning old brute. I
want an explanation. I want to know how you came to be in Folkestone
and in that extraordinary condition. I am sure something strange must
have happened to you.”
“Why? Haven’t I as much right to be in Folkestone as you have?”
“That is mere evasion. When I see a man who is usually rather
carefully and very neatly dressed, walking in the streets of a seaport
town without hat or a stick and with a collar that looks as if it had
been used to clean out a saucepan, and great stains on his clothes, I
am justified in inferring that something unusual has happened to him.”
“I didn’t think you had noticed my negligé get-up.”
“At the time I did not. I was very upset and agitated, I had just had
a lot of worry and was compelled to cross to France at a moment’s
notice; and then there was that horrible horse, and the sudden way
that you seized me and then got knocked down; and the--”
“The ancient mariner.”
“Yes, the ancient mariner; and the knowledge that I was behaving like
an idiot and couldn’t help it--though you were so nice and kind to me.
So you see, I was hardly conscious of what was happening at the time.
But afterwards, when I had recovered my wits a little, I recalled the
astonishing figure that you made, and I have been wondering ever since
what had happened to you. I assure you, Dr. Jardine, you looked as if
you might have swum to Folkestone.”
“Did I, by Jove!” I exclaimed with a laugh. “Well, appearances weren’t
so very deceptive. The fact is that I had swum part of the way.”
She looked at me incredulously. “Whatever do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean that you are now looking on a modern and strictly up-to-date
edition of Sinbad the Sailor.”
“That isn’t very explanatory. But I suppose it isn’t meant to be. It
is just a preliminary stimulant to whet my appetite for marvels, and a
most unnecessary one, I can assure you, for I am absolutely agape with
curiosity. Do go on. Tell me exactly what had happened to you.”
Now the truth is that I had already said rather more than was strictly
discreet and would gladly have drawn in my horns. But I had evidently
let myself in for some sort of plausible explanation, and a lack of
that enviable faculty that enables its possessor to tell a really
convincing and workmanlike lie, condemned me to a mere unimaginative
adherence to the bald facts, though I did make one slight and
amateurish effort at prevarication.
“You want a detailed log of Sinbad’s voyages, do you?” said I. “Then
you shall have it. We will begin at the beginning. The port of
departure was the Embankment somewhere near Cleopatra’s Needle. I was
leaning over the parapet, staring down at the water like a fool, when
some practical joker came along, and, apparently thinking it would be
rather funny to give me a fright, suddenly lifted me off my feet. But
my jocose friend hadn’t allowed for the top-heaviness of a person of
my height, and, before you could say ‘knife,’ I had slipped from his
hold and taken a most stylish header into the water. Fortunately for
me, a barge happened at the moment to be towing past, and, when I had
managed to haul myself on board, I fell into the arms of a marine
species of Good Samaritan, who, not having a supply of the orthodox
oil and wine, proceeded to fill me up with hot gin and water, which is
distinctly preferable for internal application. Then the Samaritan
aforesaid clothed me in gorgeous marine raiment and stowed me in a
cupboard to sleep off the oil and wine, which I did after some sixteen
hours, and then awoke to find our good ship on the broad bosom of the
ocean. And so--not to weary you with the incidents of the voyage--I
came to Folkestone, where I found a beautiful lady endeavouring, very
unsuccessfully, to hypnotize a run-away horse; and so to the adventure
of the tarred nets and the ancient mariner with the black bottle.”
Mrs. Samway smiled a little consciously as I mentioned the last
incidents, but the smile quickly faded and left a deeply thoughtful
expression on her face.
“You take it all very calmly,” said she, “but it seems to me to have
been a rather terrible experience. You really had a very narrow escape
from death.”
“Yes; quite near enough. I’m far from wanting any more from the same
tap.”
“And I don’t quite see why you assume that it was a mere clumsy joke
that sent you into the river by accident.”
“Why, what else could it have been?”
“It looks more like a deliberate attempt to drown you. Perhaps you
have some enemy who might want to make away with you.”
“I haven’t. There isn’t a soul in the world who owes me the slightest
grudge.”
“That seems rather a bold thing to say, but I suppose you know. Still,
I should think you ought to bear this strange affair in mind, and be a
little careful when you go out at night; to avoid the riverside, for
instance. Have you--did you give any information to the police about
this accident, as you call it?”
“Good Lord! No! What would have been the use?”
“I thought you might have given them some description of the man who
pushed you over.”
“But I never saw him. I don’t even know for certain that it was a man.
It might have been a woman for all that I can tell.”
Mrs. Samway looked up at me with that strangely penetrating expression
that I had seen before in those singular, pale eyes of hers.
“You don’t mean that?” she said. “You don’t really think that it could
have been a woman?”
“I don’t think very much about it; but as I never saw the person who