A silent witness
relieving me of some of the extra clerical work.”
Mr. Marchmont bowed, and, as we shook hands, looked at me, as I
thought, rather curiously; then he extracted the papers from his bag,
and, spreading them out on the table, briefly explained their nature.
“There is no need,” said he, “to have copies of them all, but I
thought you had better see them. Perhaps you will glance through them
and see which you think ought to be copied for reference.”
Thorndyke ran his eye over the documents, and, having made one or two
brief notes of the contents of some, which he then laid aside,
collected the remainder and began to read them out to me, while I took
down the matter verbatim, interpolating Marchmont’s comments and
explanations on a separate sheet of paper. The reading and the
discussion occupied a considerable time, and, before the business was
concluded, the Treasury clock had struck half-past nine.
“It’s getting late,” said Marchmont, folding the papers and putting
them back in the bag. “I must be going or you’ll wish me at Halifax,
if you aren’t doing so already.” He snapped the fastening of the bag,
and, grasping the handle, was about to lift it from the table, when he
appeared to recollect something, for he let go the handle and once
more faced my principal.
“By the way, Thorndyke,” said he, “there is a matter on which I have
wanted to consult you for some time past, but couldn’t get my client
to agree. It is a curious affair; quite in your line, I think; a case
of disappearance--not in the legal sense, as creating a presumption of
death, but disappearance from ordinary places of resort with a very
singular change of habits, so far as I can learn. Possibly a case of
commencing insanity. I have been wanting to lay the facts before you,
but my client, who is a Jesuit and as suspicious as the devil,
insisted on trying to ferret out the evidence for himself and wouldn’t
hear of a consultation with you. Of course he has failed completely,
and now, I think, he is more amenable.”
“Are you in possession of the facts, yourself?” asked Thorndyke.
“No, I’m hanged if I am,” replied Marchmont. “The case is concerned
with a certain Mr. Reinhardt, who was a client of my late partner,
poor Wyndhurst. I never had anything to do with him; and it
unfortunately happens that our old clerk, Bell--you remember Bell--who
had charge of Mr. Reinhardt’s business, left us soon after poor
Wyndhurst’s death, so there is nobody in the office who has any
personal knowledge of the parties.”
“You say it is a case of disappearance?” asked Thorndyke.
“Not exactly disappearance, but--well, it is a most singular case. I
can make nothing of it, and neither can my worthy and reverend client,
so as I say, he is now growing more amenable, and I think I shall be
able to persuade him to come round with me and take your opinion on
such facts as we have. Shall you be at home to-morrow evening?”
“Yes, I can make an appointment for to-morrow, after dinner, if you
prefer that time.”
“We won’t call it an appointment,” said Marchmont. “If I can overcome
his obstinacy, I will bring him round and take the chance of your
being in. But I think he’ll come, as he is on his beams’ ends; and if
he does, I fancy you will find the little problem exactly to your
liking.”
With this Mr. Marchmont took his departure, leaving Thorndyke and me
to discuss the various legal aspects of disappearance and the changes
of habit and temperament that usher in an attack of mental alienation.
I could see that the solicitor’s guarded references to an obscure and
intricate case had aroused Thorndyke’s curiosity to no small extent,
for, though he said little on the subject, it evidently remained in
his mind, as I judged by the care with which he planned the disposal
of his time of the following day, and the little preparations that he
made for the reception of his visitors. Nor was Thorndyke the only
expectant member of our little establishment. Jervis also, having
caught the scent of an interesting case, made it his business to keep
the evening free, and so it happened that when eight o’clock struck on
the Temple bell, it found us gathered round the fire, chatting on
indifferent subjects, but all three listening for the expected tread
on the stairs.
“It is to be hoped,” said Jervis, “that our reverend friend won’t jib
at the last moment. I always expect something good from Marchmont. He
doesn’t get flummoxed by anything simple or commonplace. I think we
have had most of our really thrilling cases through him. And seeing
that Jardine has laid in two whole quarto note-blocks and put those
delightful extra touches to his already alluring get-up--”
“There is no such person here as Jardine,” Thorndyke interrupted.
“I beg his pardon. Mr. Howard, I should have said. But listen! There
are two persons coming up the stairs. You had better take your place
at the table, Ja--Howard, and look beastly business-like, or the
reverend gentleman will want you chucked out, and then you’ll lose the
entertainment.”
I hurried across to the table and had just seated myself and taken up
a pen when the brass knocker on our inner door rattled out its
announcement. Thorndyke strode across and threw the door open, and as
Mr. Marchmont entered with his client I looked at the latter
inquisitively. But only for a single instant. Then I looked down and
tried to efface myself utterly, for Mr. Marchmont’s client was none
other than the cleric with whom I had travelled from Folkestone to
London.
The solicitor ushered in his client with an air of but half-concealed
triumph and proceeded with exaggerated geniality to do the honours of
introduction.
“Let me make you known to one another, gentlemen,” said he. “This is
the Very Reverend Father Humperdinck. These gentlemen are Dr.
Thorndyke, Dr. Jervis and Mr. Howard, who will act, on this occasion,
as the recording angel to take down in writing the particulars of your
very remarkable story.”
Father Humperdinck bowed stiffly. He was evidently a little
disconcerted at finding so large an assembly, and glanced at me, in
particular, with undisguised disfavour, while I, my oiled hair,
deformed eyebrows and false beard notwithstanding, perspired with
anxiety lest he should recognize me. But however unfavourably the
reverend father may have viewed our little conclave, Mr. Marchmont,
who had been watching him anxiously, gave him no chance of raising
objections, but proceeded to open the matter forthwith.
“I have not brought any digest or précis of the case,” said he,
“because I know you prefer to hear the facts from the actual parties.
But I had better give you a brief outline of the matter of our
inquiry. The case is concerned with a Mr. Vitalis Reinhardt, who has
been closely associated with Father Humperdinck for very many years
past, and who has now, without notice or explanation, disappeared from
his ordinary places of resort, ceased from communication with his
friends, and adopted a mode of life quite alien from and inconsistent
with his previous habits. Those are the main facts, stated in general
terms.”
“And the inquiry to which you referred?” said Thorndyke.
“Concerns itself with three questions,” replied Marchmont, and he
proceeded to check them off on his fingers. “First, is Vitalis
Reinhardt alive or dead? Second, if he is alive, where is he? Third,
having regard to the singular change in his habits, is his conduct
such as might render it possible to place him under restraint or to
prove him unfit to control his own affairs?”
“To certify him as insane, if I may put it bluntly,” said Thorndyke.
“That question could be decided only on a full knowledge of the nature
of the changes in this person’s habits, with which, no doubt, you are
prepared to furnish us. But what instantly strikes me in your epitome
of the proposed inquiry is this: you raise the question whether Mr.
Reinhardt is alive or dead, and then you refer to certain changes in
his habits; but, since a man must be alive to have any habits at all,
the two questions seem to be mutually irreconcilable in relation to
the same group of facts.”
Father Humperdinck nodded approvingly.
“Zat is chust our great diffigulty,” said he. “Zome zings make me
suspect zat my friend Reinhardt is dead; zome ozzer zings make me feel
certain zat he is alife. I do not know vich to zink. I am gombletely
buzzled.”
“Perhaps,” said Thorndyke, “the best plan would be for Father
Humperdinck to give us a detailed account of his relations with Mr.
Reinhardt and of the latter gentleman’s habits as they are known to
him; after which we could discuss any questions that suggest
themselves and clear up any points that seem to be obscure. What do
you say, Marchmont?”
“It will be a long story,” Marchmont replied, doubtfully.
“So much the better,” rejoined Thorndyke. “It will give us the more
matter for consideration. I would suggest that Father Humperdinck
tells us the story in his own way and that Mr. Howard takes down the
statement. Then we shall have the principal data and can pursue any
issue that seems to invite further investigation.”
To this proposal Marchmont agreed, a little reluctantly, fortifying
himself for the ordeal by lighting a cigar; and Father Humperdinck,
having cast a somewhat disparaging glance at me, began his account of
his missing friend, which I took down verbatim, and which I now
reproduce shorn of the speaker’s picturesque but rather tiresome
peculiarities of pronunciation.
“My acquaintance with Vitalis Reinhardt began more than forty years
ago, when we were both school-boys in the Jesuit’s house at Louvain.
But I did not see much of him then, as I was preparing for the
novitiate while he was on the secular side. In spite of his German
name, Vitalis was looked upon as an English boy, for his father had
married a rich English lady and was settled in England; and Vitalis,
being the only child, had very great expectations. When he left school
I lost sight of him for some years, and it was only after the war had
broken out between Germany and France that we met again. I had then
just been ordained and was attached as chaplain to a Bavarian
regiment; he had come out from England as a volunteer to attend the
sick and wounded; and so we met, soon after the battle of Saarbrück,
in the wards of a temporary hospital. But our career in the field was
not a long one. Less than a month after Saarbrück, our little force
met a French division and had to retreat, leaving a number of men and
guns and all the wounded in the hands of the enemy. Both of us were
among the prisoners, and Vitalis was one of the wounded, for, just as
the retreat began, a French bullet struck him in the right hip. We
were both taken to Paris with the rest of the prisoners, and there, in
the hospital for wounded prisoners, I was allowed to visit him.
“His wound was a severe one. The bullet had entered deeply and lodged
behind the bone of the hip, so that the repeated efforts of the
surgeons to extract it not only failed but caused great pain and made
the wound worse. From day to day poor Vitalis grew thinner and more
yellow, and we could see plainly that if no change occurred, the end
must come quite soon. So the doctors said and so Vitalis himself felt.
“Then it came to me that, if the skill of man failed us, we should ask
for help from above. It happened that I possessed a relic of the
blessed Saint Vincent de Paul, which was contained in a small gold
reliquary, and which I had been permitted by the Father General to
keep. I proposed to Vitalis that we should apply the relic and make a
special appeal to the saint for help, and also that he should promise
to dedicate some part of his great possessions to the service of God.
“He agreed readily, for he had always been a deeply pious man.