A silent witness
“And now I come to the last incident that I have to relate. The
assault took place on a Saturday; on the Sunday M. Foucault was
somewhat indisposed and unable to go out, but early on Monday he
resumed his watch on Jardine’s house. It was nearly noon when Jardine
came out, dressed as if for travelling and carrying a valise. He went
first to a house near Piccadilly and from thence to the hospital in a
cab. Foucault followed in another cab and saw him go into the hospital
and waited for him to come out. But he never came. Foucault waited
until midnight, but he did not come out. He had vanished.”
“He had probably come out by a back exit and gone home,” said
Marchmont.
“Not so,” replied Humperdinck. “The next day Foucault watched
Jardine’s house, but he did not come there. Then he made enquiries;
but Jardine is not there, and the landlady does not know where he is.
Also the porter at the hospital knows nothing and is not at all
polite. The man Jardine has disappeared as if he had never been.”
“That really is rather queer,” said Marchmont. “It is a pity that you
did not give me all these particulars at first. However, that can’t be
helped now. Is this all that you have to tell us?”
“It is all; unless there is anything that you wish to ask me.”
“I think,” said Thorndyke, “that it would be well for us to have a
description of Mr. Reinhardt; and, as we have to trace him, if
possible, a photograph would be exceedingly useful.”
“I have not a photograph with me,” said Father Humperdinck, “but I
will obtain one and send it to you. Meanwhile I will tell you what my
friend Vitalis is like. He is sixty-two years of age, spare, upright,
rather tall--his height is a hundred and seventy-three centimetres--”
“Roughly five feet nine,” interposed Thorndyke.
“His hair is nearly white, he is, of course, clean shaven, he has grey
eyes, a straight nose, not very prominent, and remarkably good teeth
for his age, which he shows somewhat when he talks. I think he is a
little vain about his teeth and he well may be, for there are not many
men of sixty-two who have not a single false tooth, nor even one that
has been stopped by the dentist. As to his clothing, he wears the
ordinary dress of a lay brother, which you are probably familiar with,
and he nearly always wears gloves, even indoors.”
“Is there any reason for his wearing gloves?” Thorndyke asked.
“Not now. The habit began when he had some affliction of the skin,
which made it necessary for him to keep his hands covered with gloves
which contained some ointment or dressing, and afterwards for a time
to conceal the disagreeable appearance of the skin. The habit having
been once formed, he continued it, saying that his hands were more
comfortable covered up than when exposed to the air.”
“Was he dressed in this fashion when he called at your office,
Marchmont?” asked Thorndyke.
“Yes. Even to the gloves. I noticed, with some surprise, that he did
not take them off even when he wrote and signed the note of which I
told you.”
“Was he then wearing the reliquary and crucifix as Father Humperdinck
has described, on the front of his waistcoat?”
“He may have been, but I didn’t notice them, as I fancy I should have
done if they had been there.”
“And you have nothing more to tell us, Father Humperdinck, as to your
friend’s personal appearance?”
“No. I will send you the photograph and write to you if I think of
anything that I have forgotten. And now, perhaps you can tell me if
you think that you will be able to answer those questions that Mr.
Marchmont put to you.”
“I cannot, of course, answer them now,” replied Thorndyke. “The facts
that you have given us will have to be considered and compared, and
certain enquiries will have to be made. Are you staying long in
England?”
“I shall be here for at least a month; and I may as well leave you my
address, although Mr. Marchmont has it.”
“In the course of a month,” Thorndyke said, as he took the proffered
card, “I think I may promise you that we shall have settled definitely
whether your friend is alive or dead; and if we find that he is alive,
we shall, no doubt, be able to ascertain his whereabouts.”
“That is very satisfactory,” said Father Humperdinck. “I hope you
shall be able to make good your promise.”
With this he rose, and, having shaken hands stiffly with Thorndyke,
bestowed on Jervis and me a ceremonious bow and moved towards the
door. I thought that Marchmont looked a little wistful, as if he would
have liked to stay and have a few words with us alone; indeed, he
lingered for a moment or two after the door was open, but then,
apparently altering his mind, he wished us “good-night” and followed
his client.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE PALIMPSEST
It was getting late when our friends left us, but nevertheless, as
soon as they were gone, we all drew our chairs up to the fire with the
obvious intention of discussing the situation and began, with one
accord, to fill our pipes. Jervis was the first to get his tobacco
alight, and, having emitted a voluminous preliminary puff, he
proceeded to open the debate.
“That man, Jardine, seems to be a pretty desperate character. Just
think of his actually wallowing in the mire--not merely rolling, mind
you, but wallowing--and of his repulsive habit of consorting with
females; one after the other, too, in rapid succession. It’s a
shocking instance of depravity.”
“Our reverend friend,” said Thorndyke, “reaches his conclusions by a
rather short route--in some cases, at least; in others, his methods
seem a little indirect and roundabout.”
“Yes,” agreed Jervis, “he’s a devil at guessing. But he didn’t get
much food for the imagination out of the man, Thorndyke. Why were you
so extraordinarily secretive? With what he told you and what you knew
before, you could surely have suggested a line of inquiry. Why didn’t
you?”
“Principally because of the man’s personality. I could not have
answered his questions; I could only have suggested one or two highly
probable solutions of the problem that he offered and partial
solutions at that. But I am not much addicted to giving partial
solutions or to handing over the raw material of a promising inquiry.
Certainly, not to a man like this, who seems incapable of a
straightforward action.”
“The reverend father,” said Jervis, “does certainly seem to be a
rather unnecessarily downy bird. And he doesn’t seem to have got much
by his excessive artfulness, after all.”
“No,” agreed Thorndyke; “nothing whatever. Quite the contrary, in
fact. Look at his ridiculous conduct in respect of ‘the man Jardine.’
I don’t complain of his having taken the precaution to obtain that
malefactor’s address; but, when he had got it, if he had not been so
tortuous, so eager to be cunning; if, in short, he had behaved like an
ordinary sensible man, he would have got, at once, all the information
that Jardine had to give. He could have called on Jardine, written to
him, employed a lawyer or applied to the police. Either of these
simple and obvious plans would have been successful; instead of which,
he must needs go to the trouble and expense of engaging this absurd
spy.”
“Who found a mare’s nest and got his head thumped,” remarked Jervis.
“Then,” continued Thorndyke, “look at his behaviour to Marchmont.
Evidently he put the case into Marchmont’s hands, but, equally
evident, he withheld material facts and secretly tinkered at the case
himself. No, Jervis, I give no information to Father Humperdinck until
I have this case complete to the last rivet. But, all the same, I am
greatly obliged to him, and especially to Marchmont for bringing him
here. He has given us a connected story to collate with our rather
loose collection of facts and, what is perhaps more important, he has
put our investigation on a business footing. That is a great
advantage. If I should want to invoke the aid of the powers that be, I
can do so now with a definite _locus standi_ as the legal
representative of interested parties.”
“I can’t imagine,” said I, “in what direction you are going to push
your inquiries. Father Humperdinck has given us, as you say, a
connected story, but it is a very unexpected one, to me, at least, and
does not fall into line at all with what we know--that is, if you are
assuming, as I have been, that the man whom I saw lying in Millfield
Lane was Vitalis Reinhardt.”
“It is difficult,” replied Thorndyke, “to avoid that assumption,
though we must be on our guard against coincidences; but the man whom
you saw agreed with the description that has been given to us, we know
that Reinhardt was in the neighbourhood on that day, and you found the
reliquary on the following morning in the immediate vicinity. We seem
to be committed to the hypothesis that the man was Reinhardt unless we
can prove that he was someone else, or that Reinhardt was in some
other place at the time; which at present we cannot.”
“Then,” said I, “in that case, the Bobby must have been right, after
all. The man couldn’t have been dead, seeing that he called on
Marchmont the following day and was afterwards traced to Paris. But I
must say that he looked as dead as Queen Anne. It just shows how
careful one ought to be in giving opinions.”
“Some authority has said,” remarked Jervis, “that the only conclusive
proof of death is decomposition. I believe it was old Taylor who said
so, and I am inclined to think that he wasn’t far wrong.”
“But,” said Thorndyke, “assuming that the man whom you saw was
Reinhardt, and that he was not dead how do you explain the other
circumstances? Was he insensible from the effects of injury or drugs?
Or was he deliberately shamming insensibility? Was it he who passed
over the fence? and if so, did he climb over unassisted or was he
helped over? And what answers do you suggest to the questions that
Marchmont propounded? You answer his first question: ‘Is Reinhardt
alive?’ in the affirmative. What about the others?”
“As to where he is,” I replied, “I can only say, the Lord knows;
probably skulking somewhere on the Continent. As to his state of mind,
the facts seem to suggest that, in vulgar parlance, he has gone off
his onion. He must be as mad as a hatter to have behaved in the way
that he has. For, even assuming that he wanted to get clear of the
Poor Brothers of Saint Jeremiah Diddler without explicitly saying so,
he adopted a fool’s plan. There is no sense in masquerading as a
corpse one day and turning up smiling at your lawyer’s office the
next. If he meant to be dead, he should have stuck to it and remained
dead.”
“The objection to that,” said Jervis, “is that Marchmont would have
proceeded to get permission to presume death and administer the will.”
“I see. Then I can only suppose that he had got infected by Father
Humperdinck and resolved to be artful at all costs and hang the
consequences.”
“Then,” said Thorndyke, “I understand your view to be that Reinhardt
is at present hiding somewhere on the Continent and that his mind is
more or less affected.”
“Yes. Though as to his being unfit to control his own affairs, I am
not so clear. I fancy there was more evidence in that direction when
he was forking out the bulk of his income to maintain the poverty of
the Poor Brothers. But the truth is, I haven’t any opinions on the
case at all. I am in a complete fog about the whole affair.”
“And no wonder,” said Jervis. “One set of facts seems to suggest most
strongly that Reinhardt must certainly be dead. Another set of facts
seems to prove beyond doubt that he was alive, at least after that
affair in Millfield Lane. He may be perpetrating an elephantine
practical joke on the Poor Brothers; but that doesn’t seem to be
particularly probable. The whole case is a tangle of contradictions