A silent witness
more to admire his work when an electric bell rang softly in the
adjoining room.
“There’s the Doctor,” he remarked. “I’m glad we are ready for him.
Shall we go down and submit our work for his inspection?”
I assented readily, having some hopes that Thorndyke would veto the
beard, and we descended together to the sitting-room, where we found
that Jervis and his principal had arrived together. As to the former,
he greeted my entrance by staggering back several paces with an
expression of terror, and then seated himself on the edge of the table
and laughed with an air of enjoyment that was almost offensive;
particularly to Polton, who stood by my side, rubbing his hands and
smiling with devilish satisfaction.
“I assume,” Thorndyke said, gravely, “that this is our friend
Jardine.”
“It isn’t,” said Jervis. “It’s the shopwalker from Wallis’s. I
recognized him instantly.”
“Look here,” I said, with some heat, “it’s all very well for you to
make me up like Charley’s Aunt and then jeer at me, but what’s the use
of it? The fifth of November’s past.”
“My dear Jardine,” Thorndyke said, soothingly, “you are confusing your
sensations with your appearance. I daresay that make-up is rather
uncomfortable, but it is completely successful, and I must
congratulate Polton; for the highest aim of a disguise is the utterly
common-place, and I assure you that you are now a most
ordinary-looking person. Fetch the looking-glass from the office,
Polton, and let him see for himself.”
I gazed into the mirror which Polton held up to me with profound
surprise. There was nothing in the least grotesque or unusual in the
face that looked out at me, only it was the face of an utter stranger;
and, as Thorndyke had said, a perfectly common-place stranger, at whom
no one would look twice in the street. Grudgingly, I acknowledged the
fact, but still objected to the beard.
“Do you think it is really necessary, sir, in addition to the other
disfigurements?”
“Yes, I do,” replied Thorndyke. “It is only a temporary expedient,
because, in a fortnight, your own beard will have grown enough to
serve with a little artificial re-enforcement. And,” he continued, as
Polton retired with a gratified smile, “I am anxious that your
disappearance shall be complete. It is not only a question of your
safety--although that is very urgent and I feel myself responsible for
you, as we are not appealing to the police. There are other issues.
Assuming, as we do assume, that some crime has been committed, the
lapse of time must inevitably cause some of the consequences of that
crime to develop. If the man whose body you saw at Hampstead was
really murdered, he must presently be missed and enquired for. Then we
shall learn who he was and perhaps we may gather what was the motive
of the crime. Then, your secret enemy will be left unemployed and may
produce some fresh evidence--for he can’t wait indefinitely for your
reappearance. And finally, certain enquiries which I am making may set
us on the right track. And, if they do, you must remember, Jardine,
that you are probably the sole witness to certain important items of
evidence; so you must be preserved in safety as a matter of public
policy, apart from your own prejudices in favour of remaining alive.”
“I didn’t know that you were actually working at the case,” I said.
“Have you been following up that man Gill of the mineral water works?”
“I followed him up to the vanishing-point. He has gone and left no
trace; and I have been unable to get any description of him.”
“Then,” said I, “if it is allowable to ask the question, in what
direction have you been making enquiries?”
“I have been interesting myself,” Thorndyke replied, “in the other
case; that of your patient Mr. Maddock, as the attacks on you seemed
to be associated with his neighbourhood rather than with that of
Hampstead. I have examined his will at Somerset House and am
collecting information about the persons who benefited by its
provisions. Especially, I am making some enquiries about a legatee who
lives in New York, and concerning whom I am rather curious. I can’t go
into further details just now, but you will see that I am keeping the
case in hand, and you must remember that, at any moment, fresh
information may reach me from other sources. My practice is a very
peculiar one, and there are few really obscure cases that are not,
sooner or later, brought to me for an opinion.”
“And, meanwhile, I am to eat the bread of idleness here and wait on
events.”
“You won’t be entirely idle,” Thorndyke replied. “We shall find you
some work to do, and you will extend your knowledge of medico-legal
practice. You write shorthand fairly well, don’t you?”
“Yes; and I can draw a little, if that is of any use.”
“Both accomplishments are of use, and, even if they are not, we should
have to exercise them for the sake of appearances. It will certainly
become known that you are here, so we had better make no secret of it,
but find you such occupation as will account for your presence. And,
as you will have to meet strangers now and again, we must find you a
name. What do you think of ‘William Morgan Howard’?”
“It will do as well as any other,” I replied.
“Very well, then William Morgan Howard let it be. And, in case you
might forget your alias, as the crooks are constantly doing, we will
drop the name of Jardine and call you Howard even when we are alone.
It will save us all from an untimely slip.”
To this arrangement also I agreed with a sour smile, and so, with some
physical discomfort in the neighbourhood of the lower jaw, and a
certain relish of the novelty and absurdity of my position, I placed
myself, under the name of Howard, on the roster of Thorndyke’s
establishment.
CHAPTER XVI.
ENTER FATHER HUMPERDINCK
On the day following my--and Thorndyke’s--masterly retreat from
Salter’s Club, the plain-clothes officer called to make his report;
and even before he spoke, I judged from his rather sheepish expression
that he had failed. And so it turned out. He had waited in the
porter’s lodge, he told us, until midnight keeping a watch on the
watcher, who, for his part, lurked in the street, always keeping in
sight of the hospital, and whiling away the time by gazing into the
shop windows. The spy had evidently failed to recognize Thorndyke, for
when the latter left the hospital in company with one of the
physicians, he had given only a passing glance at the open carriage in
which the two men sat.
After the shops had shut, the persevering shadower had occupied
himself with a sort of dismal sentry-go up and down the street,
disappearing into the darkness and reappearing at regular intervals.
Once or twice, the plain-clothes man went out and followed his quarry
in his perambulations, but, not considering it prudent to expose
himself too much to view, he remained mostly in the Lodge. It was
after one of these sallies that the mischance occurred. Returning to
the Lodge, he saw the spy pass the gates and disappear up the dark
street; he looked, after the usual interval, for him to reappear. But
the interval passed and there was no reappearance. Then the officer
hurried out in search of his quarry, but found only an empty street.
Even the apparently inexhaustible patience of the spy had given out at
last. And so the quest had ended.
I cannot say that Thorndyke impressed me as being deeply disappointed;
in fact, I thought that he seemed, if anything, rather relieved at his
emissary’s failure. This was Jervis’s opinion also, and he had no
false delicacy about expressing it.
“Well,” Thorndyke replied, “as the fellow thrust himself right under
my nose, I could hardly do less than make some sort of an attempt to
find out who he is. But I don’t particularly want to know. My
investigations are proceeding from quite another direction; and you
see, Jervis, how awkward it might have been to have this person on our
hands. We could only charge him with loitering with felonious intent,
and we couldn’t prove the intent after all; for we can’t produce any
evidence connecting this man with the three attempted murders. He may
not be the same man at all. And I certainly don’t want to go into the
witness box just now, and still less do I want my new clerk, Mr.
Howard, put into that position. I don’t want to take any action until
I have the case quite complete and am in a position to make a decisive
move.”
“The truth is,” said Jervis, addressing me confidentially in a stage
whisper, “Thorndyke hates the idea of spoiling a really juicy problem
by merely arresting the criminal and pumping his friends. He looks on
such a proceeding much as a Master of Fox-hounds would look on the act
of poisoning a fox.”
Thorndyke smiled indulgently at his junior. “There is such a thing,”
said he, “as failing to poison a fox and only making him too unwell to
leave his residence. A premature prosecution is apt to fail; and then
the prisoner has seen all the cards of his adversaries. At present I
am playing against an unseen adversary, but I am hoping that I, in my
turn, am unseen by him, and I am pretty certain that he has no idea
what cards I hold.”
“Gad!” exclaimed Jervis, “then he is in much the same position as I
am.” And with this the subject dropped.
The first week of my residence in Thorndyke’s chambers was quite
uneventful, and was mainly occupied in settling down to the new
conditions. My letters were sent on by Mrs. Blunt to the hospital
whence they were brought by my principal--as I may now call my quondam
teacher--with the exception of Sylvia’s; which we had agreed were to
be sent to the chambers enclosed in an envelope addressed to
Thorndyke.
At first, I had feared that the confinement would be unendurable; but
the reality proved to be much less wearisome than I had anticipated. A
horizontal bar rigged up by Polton in the laboratory, gave me the
means of abundant exercise of one kind; and in the early mornings,
before the gates of the inn were opened, I made it my daily practice
to trot round the precincts for an hour at a time, taking the circuit
from our chambers through Crown Office Road to Fountain Court and back
by way of Pump Court and the Cloisters, to the great benefit of my
health and the mild surprise of the porters and laundresses.
Nor was I without occupation in the daytime. Besides an exhaustively
detailed account of all the remarkable experiences that had befallen
me of late which I wrote out at Thorndyke’s request, I had a good deal
of clerical work of one kind and another, and was frequently employed,
when clients called, in exhibiting my skill as a stenographer; taking
down oral statements, or making copies of depositions or other
documents which were read over to me by Thorndyke or Jervis.
It was the exercise of these latter activities that introduced me to a
certain Mr. Marchmont, and through him to some new and rather
startling experiences. Mr. Marchmont was a solicitor, and, as I
gathered, an old client of Thorndyke’s; for, when he called one
evening, about ten days after my arrival, with a bagful of documents,
he made sundry references to former cases by which I understood that
he and Thorndyke had been pretty frequently associated in their
professional affairs.
“I have got a lot of papers here,” he said, opening the bag, “of which
I suppose I ought to have had copies made; but there hasn’t been time
and I am afraid there won’t be, as I have to return them to-morrow.
But perhaps, if you run your eye over them, you will see what it is
necessary to remember and make a few notes.”
“I think,” said Thorndyke, “that my friend, Mr. Howard, will be able
to help us by taking down the essentials in shorthand. Let me
introduce you. Mr. Howard is very kindly assisting me for a time by