A silent witness
which one might regard as beyond unravelment if it were not for a
single clear and intelligible fact.”
“What is that?” I asked.
“That my revered senior has undertaken to furnish a solution in the
course of a month; from which I gather that my revered senior has
something up his sleeve.”
“There is nothing up my sleeve,” said Thorndyke, “that might not
equally well be up yours. I have made no separate investigations. The
actual data which I possess were acquired in the presence of one or
both of you, and are now the common property of us all. I am
referring, of course, to the original data, not to fresh matter
obtained by inference from, or further examination of those data.”
Jervis smiled sardonically. “It is the old story,” said he. “The
magician offers you his hat to inspect.
“You observe, ladies and gentlemen, that there is no deception. You
can look inside it and examine the lining, and you can also inspect
the top of my head. I now put on my hat. I now take it off again and
you notice that there is a guinea pig sitting in it. There was no
deception, ladies and gentlemen, you had all the data.”
Thorndyke laughed and shook his head.
“That’s all nonsense, Jervis,” he said. “It is a false analogy. I have
done nothing to divert your attention. The guinea pig has been staring
you in the face all the time.”
“Very rude of him,” murmured Jervis.
“I have even drawn your attention to him once or twice. But,
seriously, I don’t think that this case is so very obscure, though
mind you, it is a mere hypothesis so far as I am concerned, and may
break down completely when I come to apply the tests that I have in
view. But what I mean is, that the facts known to us suggested a very
obvious hypothesis and that the suggestion was offered equally to us
all. The verification may fail, but that is another matter.”
“Are you going to work at the case immediately?” I asked.
“No,” Thorndyke replied. “Jervis and I have to attend at the Maidstone
Assizes for the next few days. We are retained on a case which
involves some very important issues in relation to life assurance, and
that will take up most of our time. So this other affair will have to
wait.”
“And meanwhile,” said Jervis, “you will stay at home like a good boy
and mind the shop; and I suppose we shall have to find you something
to do, to keep you out of mischief. What do you say to making a
longhand transcript of Father Humperdinck’s statement?”
“Yes, you had better do that,” said Thorndyke; “and attach it to the
original shorthand copy. And now we must really turn in or we shall
never be ready for our start in the morning.”
The transcription of Father Humperdinck’s statement gave me abundant
occupation for the whole of the following morning. But when that was
finished, I was without any definite employment, and, though I was not
in the least dull--for I was accustomed to a solitary life--I suppose
I was in that state of susceptibility to mischief that is proverbially
associated with unemployment. And in these untoward circumstances I
was suddenly exposed to a great temptation; and after some feeble
efforts at resistance, succumbed ignominiously.
I shall offer no excuses for my conduct nor seek in any way to
mitigate the judgment that all discreet persons will pass upon my
folly. I make no claims to discretion or to the caution and foresight
of a man like Thorndyke. At this time I was an impulsive and rather
heedless young man, and my actions were pretty much those which might
have been expected from a person of such temperament.
The voice of the tempter issued in the first place from our
letter-box, and assumed the sound of the falling of letters thereinto.
I hastened to extract the catch, and sorting out the envelopes,
selected one, the superscription of which was in Sylvia’s now familiar
handwriting. It was actually addressed to Dr. Thorndyke, but a private
mark, on which we had agreed, exposed that naïvely pious fraud and
gave me the right to open it; which I did, and seated myself in the
armchair to enjoy its perusal at my ease.
It was a delightful letter; bright, gossipy and full of frank and
intimate friendliness. As I read it, the trim, graceful figure and
pretty face of the writer rose before me and made me wonder a little
discontentedly how long it would be before I should look on her and
hear her voice again. It was now getting into the third week since I
had last seen her, and, as the time passed, I was feeling more and
more how great a blank in my life the separation from her had caused.
Our friendship had grown up in a quiet and unsensational fashion and I
suppose I had not realized all that it meant; but I was realizing it
now; and, as I conned over her letter, with its little personal notes
and familiar turns of expression, I began to be consumed with a desire
to see her, to hear her speak, to tell her that she was not as other
women to me, and to claim a like special place in her thoughts.
It was towards the end of the letter that the tempter spoke out in
clear and unmistakable language, and these were the words that he
used, through the medium of the innocent and unconscious Sylvia:
“You remember those sketches that you stole for me--‘pinched,’ I think
was your own expression. Well, I have cleaned off the daubs of paint
with which they had been disfigured and put them in rough frames in my
studio. All but one; and I began on that yesterday with a scraper and
a rag dipped in chloroform. But I took off, not only the defacing
marks but part of the surface as well; and then I got such a surprise!
I shan’t tell you what the surprise was, because you’ll see, when you
come out of the house of bondage. I am going to work on it again
to-morrow, and perhaps I shall get the transformation finished. How I
wish you could come and see it done! It takes away more than half the
joy of exploration not to be able to share the discovery with you; in
fact, I have a good mind to leave it unfinished so that we can
complete the transformation together.”
Now, I need not say that, as to the precious sketches, I cared not a
fig what was under the top coat of paint. What I did care for was that
this dear maid was missing me as I missed her; was wanting my sympathy
with her little interests and pleasures and was telling me, half
unconsciously, perhaps, that my absence had created a blank in her
life, as her absence had in mine. And forthwith I began to ask myself
whether there was really any good reason why I should not, just for
this once, break out of my prison and snatch a few brief hours of
sunshine. The spy had been exploded. He was not likely to pick up my
tracks after all this time and now that my appearance was so altered;
and I did not care much if he did, seeing that he had been shown to be
perfectly harmless. The only circumstance that tended to restrain me
from this folly was the one that mitigated its rashness--the change in
my appearance; and even that, now that I was used to it and knew that
my aspect was neither grotesque nor ridiculous, had little weight, for
Sylvia would be prepared for the change and we could enjoy the joke
together.
I was aware, even at the time, that I was not being quite candid with
myself, for, if I had been, I should obviously have consulted
Thorndyke. Instead of which I answered the letter by return,
announcing my intention of coming to tea on the following day; and
having sent Polton out to post it, spent the remainder of the
afternoon in gleeful anticipation of my little holiday, tempered by
some nervousness as to what Thorndyke would have to say on the matter,
and as to what “my pretty friend,” as Mrs. Samway had very
appropriately called her, would think of my having begun my letter
with the words, “My dear Sylvia.”
Nothing happened to interfere with my nefarious plans.
On the following morning, Thorndyke and Jervis went off after an early
breakfast, leaving me in possession of the premises and master of my
actions. I elected to anticipate the usual luncheon time by half an
hour, and, when this meal was disposed of, I crept to my room and
thoroughly cleansed my hair of the grease which Polton still persisted
in applying to it; for, since my hat would conceal it while I was out
of doors, the added disfigurement was unnecessary. I was even tempted
to tamper slightly with my eyebrows, but this impulse I nobly
resisted; and, having dried my hair and combed it in its normal
fashion, I descended on tip-toe to the sitting-room and wrote a short,
explanatory note to Polton, which I left conspicuously on the table.
Then I switched the door-bell on to the laboratory, and, letting
myself out like a retreating burglar, closed the door silently and
sneaked away down the dark staircase.
Once fairly outside, I went off like a lamplighter, and, shooting out
through the Tudor Street gate, made my way eastward to Broad Street
Station, where I was fortunate enough to catch a train that was just
on the point of starting. At Hampstead Heath Station I got out, and,
snuffing the air joyfully, set forth at my best pace up the slope that
leads to the summit; and in little over twenty minutes found myself at
the gate of “The Hawthorns.”
There was no need to knock or ring. My approach had been observed from
the window, and, as I strode up the garden path, the door opened and
Sylvia ran out to meet me.
“It _was_ nice of you to come!” she exclaimed, as I took her hand and
held it in mine. “I don’t believe you ought to have ventured out, but
I am most delighted all the same. Don’t make a noise; Mopsy is having
a little doze in the drawing room. Come into the morning room and let
me have a good look at you.”
I followed her meekly into the front room, where, in the large bay
window, she inspected me critically, her cheeks dimpling with a
mischievous smile.
“There’s something radically wrong about your eyebrows,” she said,
“but, really, you are not in the least the fright that you made out.
As to the beard and moustache, I am not sure that I don’t rather like
them.”
“I hope you don’t,” I replied, “because, off they come at the first
opportunity--unless, of course, you forbid it.”
“Does my opinion of your appearance matter so much then?”
“It matters entirely. I don’t care what I look like to anyone else.”
“Oh! what a fib!” exclaimed Sylvia. “Don’t I remember how very neatly
turned out you always were when you used to pass me in the lane before
we knew one another?”
“Exactly,” I retorted. “We didn’t know one another then. That makes
all the difference in the world--to me, at any rate.”
“Does it?” she said, colouring a little and looking at me
thoughtfully. “It’s very--very flattering of you to say so, Dr.
Jardine.”
“I hope you don’t mean that as a snub,” I said, rather uneasy at the
form of her reply and thinking of my letter.
“A snub!” she exclaimed. “No, I certainly don’t. What did I say?”
“You called me Dr. Jardine. I addressed you in my letter as
‘Sylvia’--‘My dear Sylvia.’”
“And what ought I to have said?” she asked, blushing warmly and
casting down her eyes.
“Well, Sylvia, if you liked me as well as I like you, I don’t see why
you shouldn’t call me Humphrey. We are quite old friends now.”
“So we are,” she agreed; “and perhaps it _would_ be less formal. So
Humphrey it shall be in future, since that is your royal command. But
tell me, how did you prevail on Dr. Thorndyke to let you come here? Is
there any change in the situation?”
“There’s a change in my situation, and a mighty agreeable change, too.
I’m here.”
“Now don’t be silly. How did you persuade Dr. Thorndyke to let you
come?”
“Ha--that, my dear Sylvia, is a rather embarrassing question. Shall we
change the subject?”
“No, we won’t.” She looked at me suspiciously for a moment and then