The mystery of Angelina Frood
partner’s. Starting up from his chair and taking his pipe from his
mouth, he gazed at me for some seconds in silent dismay.
“I suppose,” he said at length, “there is no mistake. It is really
certain that she did not come back last night?”
“I am afraid there is no doubt of the fact,” I replied, and I gave him
the details with which Mrs. Gillow had furnished me.
“Dear! dear!” he exclaimed. “I don’t like the look of this at all.
What the deuce can have happened to her?”
Here Bundy repeated the suggestion that he had made to me, but Japp
shook his head. “She wouldn’t have gone off without letting me or the
doctor know. Why should she? We are friends, and she knew she could
trust us. Besides, the thing isn’t possible. A middle-class woman
can’t set out like a tramp without any luggage or common necessaries.
There’s only one possibility,” he added after a pause. “She might have
seen Nicholas prowling about and gone straight to the station and
taken a train to London. One of her woman friends would have been able
to put her up for the night.”
“Or,” suggested Bundy, “she might even have gone up to town with Nick
himself if he met her and threatened to make a scene.”
“Yes,” said Japp doubtfully, “that is, I suppose, possible. But it
isn’t in the least likely. For that matter, nothing is likely. It is a
most mysterious affair, and very disturbing, very disturbing, indeed.”
“The question is,” said I, “what is to be done? Do you think we ought
to communicate with the police?”
“Well, no,” he replied; “not immediately. If we don’t hear anything,
say to-morrow, I suppose we shall have to. But we had better not be
precipitate. If we go to the police, we shall have to tell them
everything. Let us give her time to communicate, in case she has had
to make a sudden retirement--a clear forty-eight hours, as it is a
week-end. But we had better make some cautious inquiries meanwhile. I
suggest that we walk up to the hospital. They know me pretty well
there, and I could just informally ascertain whether any accidents had
been admitted, without giving any detailed reasons for the inquiry.
Are you coming with us, Bundy?”
“Yes,” replied Bundy, who, having been provided with a light
breakfast, was despatching it with lightning speed; “I shall be ready
by the time you have got your boots on.”
A few minutes later we set forth together, and made our way straight
to the hospital. Bundy and I waited outside while Japp went in to make
his inquiries; and, as we walked up and down, my imagination busied
itself in picturing the hideous possibilities suggested by a somewhat
extensive experience of the casualty department of a general hospital.
Presently Japp emerged, shaking his head.
“She is not there,” said he. “There were no casualties of any kind
admitted last night or since.”
“Is there no other hospital?” I asked.
“None but the military hospital,” he replied. “All the casualties from
the district would be brought here. So we seem to be at the end of our
resources, short of inquiring at the police-station; and even if that
were advisable, it would be useless, for if--anything had
happened--anything, I mean, that we hope has not happened--Mrs. Gillow
would have heard. She will be sure to have had something about her by
which she could have been identified.”
“She had,” said I. “The little box that I gave her had her name and my
address on it.”
“Then,” said Japp. “I don’t see that we can do anything more. We can
only wait until to-morrow evening or Tuesday morning, and if we don’t
get any news of her by then, notify the police.”
Unwillingly I had to admit that this was so; and when I had walked
back with the partners to Mr. Japp’s house, I left them and proceeded
to report to Mrs. Gillow and to ascertain whether, in the meantime,
she had received any tidings of her missing tenant.
It was with more of fear than hope that I plied the familiar knocker,
but the eager, expectant face that greeted me when the door opened,
while it relieved the one, banished the other. She had heard nothing,
and when I had communicated my own unsatisfactory report she groaned
and shook her head.
“You are quite sure,” I said, after an interval of silence, “that she
did not return from Chatham?”
“I don’t see how she could have done,” was the reply. “You see, it was
like this: I was going to see my sister at Frindsbury, and as I came
down to the hall, Mrs. Frood opened her door and spoke to me. She had
her hat on then, and she told me she was coming to you, and then going
on to Chatham, but that she would be back pretty soon, and was going
to bed early. I went out, leaving her at her room door, and took the
tram to Frindsbury, and I got back home about a quarter to ten. Her
sitting-room door was open, and I could see that she hadn’t gone to
bed, because her lamp was alight and her supper tray was on the table
and hadn’t been touched. I knocked at her bedroom door, but there was
no answer, so I went upstairs and sat up listening for her, and before
I went to bed I went down again, as I told you.”
“What time was it when you went out?” I asked.
“About a quarter past eight. I told her I was going to Frindsbury, and
that I should be home before ten, and I asked her not to bolt the door
if she came in before me.”
“Then,” said I, “she must have gone out directly after you, because it
was only a little after half-past eight when she called on me; and
presumably she went straight on to Chatham. If we only knew what she
was going there for we might be able to trace her. Did she know
anybody at Chatham?”
“So far as I know,” replied Mrs. Gillow, “she didn’t know anybody here
but you and Mr. Japp. I can’t imagine what she could have been going
to Chatham for.”
After a little further talk, I took my leave and walked homeward in a
very wretched frame of mind. Tormented as I was with a gnawing
anxiety, inaction was intolerable. Yet there was nothing to be done;
nothing but to wait in the feeble hope that the morning might bring
some message of relief, and with a heavy foreboding that the tidings,
when they came, would be evil tidings. But I found it impossible to
wait passively at home. At intervals during the day I went forth to
wander up and down the streets; and some impulse which I hardly dared
to recognize directed my steps again and again to the wharves and
foreshore that lie by the bend of the river between Rochester and
Chatham.
On the following morning I betook myself as early as I decently could
to the office of Japp and Bundy. No letter had arrived by the early
post, nor, when I repeated my visit later, was there any news, either
by post or telegram, or from Mrs. Gillow. I paid a furtive visit to
the police-station and glanced nervously over the bills on the
notice-board, and I made another perambulation of the waterside
districts, which occupied me until it was time for me to repair to the
station to meet the train by which my friends were expected to arrive,
and did, in fact, arrive.
As we walked from the station to my house Jervis looked at me
critically from time to time. After one of these inspections he
remarked:
“I don’t know whether it is my fancy, Strangeways, but it seems to me
that the cares of medical practice are affecting your spirits. You
look worried.”
“I am worried,” I replied. “There has been a very disturbing
development of that case that I was telling you about.”
“The doper, you mean?”
“His wife. She has disappeared. She went out on Saturday night and has
not been seen since.”
“That sounds rather ominous,” said Jervis. “I presume the
circumstances--if you know them--could be communicated without any
breach of confidence.”
“They will have to be made fully public if she doesn’t turn up by this
evening,” I replied, “and I am only too glad of the chance to talk the
matter over with you,” and forthwith I proceeded to give a
circumstantial account of the events connected with the disappearance,
not omitting any detail that seemed to have the slightest bearing. And
I now felt justified in relating my experience when I was acting for
Dr. Pumphrey. The narrative was interrupted by our arrival at my
house, but when we had taken our places at the table it was continued
and listened to with intense interest by my two friends.
“Well,” said Jervis, when I had finished, “it has an ugly look,
especially when one considers it in connexion with that affair in
London. But there is something to be said for your friend Bundy’s
suggestion. Don’t you think so, Thorndyke?”
“Something, perhaps,” Thorndyke agreed, “but not much; and if no
letter arrives to-night or to-morrow morning, I should say it is
excluded. This lady seems to have had complete confidence in
Strangeways and in Mr. Japp. She could depend on their secrecy if she
had to move suddenly to a fresh locality; and she seems to have been a
responsible person who would not unnecessarily expose them to anxiety
about her safety. Moreover, she would know that, if she kept them in
the dark, they must unavoidably put the police on her track, which
would be the last thing that she would wish.”
“Can you make any suggestion as to what has probably happened?” I
asked.
“It is not of much use to speculate,” replied Thorndyke. “If we
exclude a voluntary disappearance, an accident or sudden illness, as
we apparently can, there seems to remain only the possibility of
crime. But to the theory of crime--of murder, to put it bluntly--there
is a manifest objection. So far as the circumstances are known to us,
a murder, if it had occurred, would have been an impromptu murder,
committed in a more or less public place. But the first indication of
a murder of that kind is usually the discovery of the body. Here,
however, thirty-six hours have elapsed, and no body has come to light.
On the other hand, we have to bear in mind that there is a large,
tidal river skirting the town. Into that river the missing lady might
have fallen accidentally, or have been thrown, dead or alive. But it
is not very profitable to speculate. We can neither form any opinion
nor take any action until we have some further facts.”
I must confess that, as I listened to Thorndyke thus calmly comparing
the horrible possibilities, I experienced a dreadful sinking of the
heart, but yet I realized that this passionless consideration of the
essential evidence was more to the point, and promised more result
than any amount of unskilful groping under the urge of emotion and
personal feeling. And, realizing this, I formed the bold resolution of
enlisting Thorndyke’s aid in a regular, professional capacity, and
began to cast about for the means of introducing the rather delicate
subject. But while I was reflecting, the opportunity was gone, at
least for the present. Lunch had virtually come to an end, for Mrs.
Dunk had silently and with iron visage just placed the port and the
coffee on the table and retired, when Jervis, who had observed her
with evident interest, inquired: “Does that old Sphinx do the cooking,
Strangeways?”
“She does everything,” I answered. “I have suggested that she should
get some help, but she just growled and ignored the suggestion.”
“Well,” said Jervis, “she doesn’t give you much excuse for growling.
She has turned out a lunch that would have done credit to Delmonico’s.
Are you coming to the inquest with us? We shall have to be starting in
a few minutes.”
“I may as well,” said I. “Then I can bring you back to tea. And I want
to make a proposal, which we can discuss as we go along. It is with
regard to the case of Mrs. Frood.”
As my two friends looked at me inquiringly but made no remark, I
poured out the coffee and continued: “You see, Mrs. Frood was my
patient, and, in a way, my friend; in fact, with the exception of