From my late principal’s house we walked away quickly down the lamplit street, all, I think, dimly amused at the circumstances of our departure.
“Is Batson always like that?” Thorndyke asked.
“Always,” I replied. “Hurry and bustle are his normal states.”
“Dear, dear,” commented Thorndyke, “what a terrible amount of time he must waste. Of course, one can understand now how that cremation muddle came about. Your incurable hustler is always thinking of the things he has got to do next instead of the thing that he is doing at the moment. By the way, Jardine, I am taking it for granted that you would like to inspect these premises. It is not essential. Jervis and I had a preliminary look round last night, and I daresay we picked up most of the facts that are likely to be of importance if we should be going farther into the matter.”
“I think it would be as well for me to take a look at the place and show you exactly where and how the affair happened.”
“I think so too,” said Thorndyke. “It was all pretty evident, but you might be able to show us something that we had overlooked. Here we are. I wonder if Mr. Gill is on the premises—supposing him still to frequent them.”
He looked up and down the street, and, taking a key from his pocket, inserted it into the lock.
“Why, how on earth did you get the key?” I asked. Thorndyke looked at me slyly.
“We keep a tame mechanic,” said he, as he turned the key and opened the wicket.
“Yes, but how did he get the pattern of the lock?” I asked.
Thorndyke laughed softly. “It is only a simple trade lock. The fact is, Jardine, that in our branch of practice we have occasionally to take some rather irregular proceedings. For instance, I usually carry a small set of picklocks—fortunately for you. That is how I got in last night. Then I never go abroad without a little box of moulding wax; a most invaluable material, Jardine, for collecting certain kinds of evidence. Well, with a slip of wood and a bit of wax I was able to furnish my man with the necessary data for filing up a blank key. One doesn’t want to be seen using a picklock. Now, can you show us the way?”
He flashed a pocket electric lamp on the ground, and we advanced over the rough cobbles until we reached a door at the side.
“This is where I went in,” said I. “It opens into a sort of corridor, and at the end is a door opening on some steps that lead down to the passage below.”
Thorndyke tried the handle of the door and pushed, but it was evidently locked or bolted.
“I left this door unlocked last night,” said he; “so it is clear that someone has been here since. I hardly expected that. I thought our friend would have cleared off for good. But it is possible that Gill had nothing to do with the attempt. The premises may have been used by someone who happened to know that they were unoccupied. It would have been quite easy for such a person to gain admittance; as you see.”
While speaking, he had produced from his pocket a little bunch of skeleton keys, with one of which he now quietly unlocked the door.
“These builders’ locks,” said he, “are merely symbolic of security. You are not expected to unfasten them without authority, but you can if you like and happen to have a bit of stiff wire.”
We entered the corridor, and, as we proceeded, looked into the rooms that opened out of it. One of them was meagrely furnished as an office, but the thick layer of dust on the desk and stools showed clearly that it had been long disused; the other rooms were empty and desolate, and showed no trace of use or occupation.
“The worthy Gill,” said Jervis, “seems to have been able, like Diogenes, to get on with a very modest outfit.”
“Yes,” agreed Thorndyke, “it is a little difficult to guess what his occupation is. The place looks as if it had never been used at all. Shall I go first?”
He halted for a moment, passing the light of his lamp over the massive door at the head of the steps, and then began to descend. It was certainly a horrible and repulsive place, especially to my eyes, with the recollection of my late experience fresh in my mind. The rough brick walls, covered with the crumbling remains of old white-wash, the black masses of cobwebs that drooped like funereal stalactites from the ceiling, the fungi that sprouted in corners, and the snail-tracks that glistened in the lamplight on the stone floor, all contributed to a vault-like sepulchral effect that was most unpleasantly suggestive of what might have been and very nearly had been.
My late prison was easily distinguished by the two holes in the door. We looked in; but that cellar was completely empty save for a few chips of wood and a pinch or two of sawdust; memorials of my sojourn in the lethal chamber at which I could hardly look without a shudder. Then we passed on to the next cellar—the one adjoining my prison—and this was an object of no little curiosity to me. Here, while I was securely bolted into my cell, that unknown villain had, deliberately and in cold blood, made all the arrangements for my murder; arrangements which he little suspected that I should survive to look upon.
Thorndyke, too, was interested. He stood at the open door, looking in as if considering the positions of various objects. As in fact he was.
“Someone has been here since last night, Jervis,” said he.
“Yes,” agreed Jervis. “That gas bottle has been taken down from the opening. You see, Jardine,” he continued, “he had stood that big packing-case up on end and laid the gas bottle along the top, with its nozzle just opposite the hole. Two other bottles were standing upright with their nozzles upwards.”
“I understand,” said Thorndyke, “that you heard three bottles only turned on?”
“Yes,” I answered; “there was the one opposite the hole and two others.”
“I ask,” Thorndyke said, “because there are, as you see, seven other bottles, lying by the wall. Those are all empty. We tried them when we came here last night.”
“I know nothing about those others,” said I. “The three bottles that I have mentioned I heard distinctly, and after he had turned on the third, the man went out of the cellar and closed up the door.”
“Then,” said Thorndyke, “the other seven were presumably used for some other—and let us hope, more legitimate—purpose. I wonder why our friend has been at the trouble of moving the cylinders.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Jervis, “he thought that the arrangement might be a little too illuminating for the police, if they should happen to pay a visit to the place. He may not be aware that the apparatus had already been inspected in situ by us. Or, again, the cylinders may have been moved by someone else. We are assuming that he is a lawful occupant of the premises; but he may be a mere secret intruder like ourselves, who has discovered that the place is more or less unoccupied and has made use of the premises and plant for his own benevolent purposes.”
“Yes,” agreed Thorndyke, “that is perfectly true. But we can put the matter to the test, at least negatively. If the cylinders have been moved by an innocent stranger they will bear the prints of hands.”
“But why shouldn’t the man himself leave the prints of his hands on the cylinders?” I asked.
“Because, my dear Jardine, he is too knowing a bird. Jervis and I went carefully over the cylinders last night in the hope of getting a few finger-prints to submit to Scotland Yard; but not a vestige could we find. Our friend had seen to that. We assumed that he had operated in gloves and your description of him confirmed our assumption. Which, in its way, is an interesting fact, for a man who is knowing enough to take these precautions has probably had some previous experience of crime, or, at least, has some acquaintance with the ways of criminals. The suggestion, in fact, is that, although this is not an ordinary professional crime, the perpetrator may be a professional criminal. And the further suggestion is, of course, that of very deliberate premeditation.”
While he had been speaking he had produced from his pocket a small, flattened bottle fitted with a metal cap and filled with a yellowish powder. Removing the cap and uncovering a perforated inner cap, like that of an iodoform dredger, he proceeded to shake a cloud of the light powder over the three upper cylinders, jarring them with his foot to make the powder spread. Then he blew sharply on them, one after the other, when the powder disappeared from their surfaces, leaving visible one or two shapeless whitened smears but never a trace of a finger-print or even the shape of a hand.
Thorndyke rose and slipped the bottle back in his pocket.
“Apparently,” said he, “the cylinders were moved by our unknown friend, with the same careful precautions as on the first occasion. A wary gentleman, this, Jervis. He’ll give us a run for our money, at any rate.”
“Yes,” agreed Jervis, “he doesn’t mean to give himself away. He preserves his incognito most punctiliously. I’ll say that for him.”
“And meanwhile,” said Thorndyke, “we had better proceed with our measures for drawing him out of this modest retirement. I want you, Jardine, to look round this cellar and tell us if any of the things that you see in it reminds you of anything that has happened to you, or suggests any thought or reflection.”
I looked round, I am afraid rather vacantly. A more unsuggestive collection of objects I have never looked upon.
“There are the gas cylinders,” I said, feebly; “but I have told you about them. I don’t see anything else excepting a few oddments of rubbish.”
“Then take a good look at the rubbish,” said he. “Remember that it may be necessary at some future time for you to recall exactly what this cellar was like, and what it contained. You may even have to make a sworn statement. So cast your eye round and tell us what you see.”
I did so, wondering inwardly what the deuce I was expected to see and what might be the importance of my seeing it.
“I see,” said I, “a mouldy-looking cellar about fifteen feet by twelve, with very bad brick walls, a plaster ceiling in an advanced stage of decay, and a concrete floor. In the left hand wall is a hole about six inches square opening into the adjoining cellar. The contents are ten gas cylinders, all apparently empty, a key or spanner which seems to have been used to turn the cocks, a large packing-case, which, to judge by its shape, seems to have contained gas cylinders—”
“The word ‘large,’ ” interrupted Thorndyke, “is not a particularly exact one.”
“Well, then, a packing-case about seven feet long by two and a half feet wide and deep.”
“That’s better,” said Thorndyke. “Always give your dimensions in quantitative terms if possible. Go on.”
“There are a couple of waterproof sheets,” said I. “I don’t see quite what they can have been used for.”
“Never mind their use,” said Thorndyke. “Note the fact that they are here.”
“I have,” said I; “and that seems to complete the list with the exception of the straw in which I suppose the gas cylinders were packed. There is a large quantity of that, but not more than would seem necessary for the purpose. And that seems to complete the inventory, and, I may say, that none of these things conveys any suggestion whatever to my mind.”
“Probably not,” said Thorndyke, “and it is quite possible that none of these things has any particular significance at all. But as they are the only facts offered us, we must make the best of them. There is one other cellar that we have not yet looked into, I think.”
We came out, and, walking along the passage, came to another door which stood slightly ajar. Thorndyke opened it, and, throwing in the light of his lamp, revealed a considerable stack of long iron gas bottles, and one or two packing-cases similar to the one I had already seen.
“I presume,” said he, “that these are full cylinders; the store from which our friend got his supply, but we may as well make sure.”
He ran back into the adjoining cellar, and returned with the spanner, with which he proceeded to turn the cock of one of the topmost cylinders; upon which a loud hiss and a thin, snowy cloud showed that his surmise was correct.
He had just closed the cock and stepped out into the passage to take back the spanner, when I saw him stop suddenly as if listening. And then he sniffed once or twice.
“What is it?” asked Jervis; but Thorndyke, without replying, ran quickly along the passage and up the steps, and I heard him trying the door at the top.
“Bring up one of the empty cylinders,” he said quietly. “They have bolted us in and apparently set fire to the place.”
We did not require much urging to act quickly. Picking up one of the long, ponderous iron cylinders, we ran with it along the passage towards the light of Thorndyke’s lamp. As we ascended the steps I became plainly aware of the smell of burning wood and of a crackling sound, faintly audible through the massive door.
“There is only one bolt,” said Thorndyke; “I noticed it as we came in. I will throw my light on the part of the door where it is fixed, and you two must batter on that spot with the cylinder.”
The door was, as I have said, a massive one, but it would have been a massive door indeed that could have withstood the blows of that ponderous iron cylinder, wielded by two strong men whose lives depended on their efforts. At the very first crash of the battering-ram, a tiny chink opened and at each thundering blow, the building shook. Furiously we pounded at the thick, plank-built door, and slowly the chink widened as the screws of the bolt tore out of the woodwork. And as the chink opened, a thin reek of pungent smoke filtered in, and the cold light of Thorndyke’s lantern became contrasted with a red glare from without. And then suddenly, the door, under the heavy battering, burst from its fastenings and swung open. A blinding, choking cloud of smoke and sparks rolled in upon us, through which we could see in the corridor outside a pile of straw and crates and broken packing-cases, blazing and cracking furiously. It looked as if we were cut off beyond all hope.
Jervis and I had dropped the now useless cylinder and were gazing in horror at the blazing mass that filled the corridor and cut off our only means of escape, when we were recalled by the voice of Thorndyke, speaking in his usual quiet and precise manner.
“We must get the full cylinders up as quickly as possible,” said he; and, running down the steps he made straight for the end cellar, whither we followed him. Picking up one of the cylinders, we carried it quickly to the top of the steps.
“Lay it down,” said Thorndyke, “and fetch another.”
Jervis and I ran back to the cellar, and taking up another cylinder, brought it along the passage. As we were ascending the steps, there suddenly arose a loud, penetrating hiss, and as we reached the top, we saw Thorndyke disengaging the spanner from the cock of the cylinder out of which a jet of liquid was issuing, mingled with a dense, snowy cloud.
An instantaneous glance, as we laid down the fresh cylinder, reassured me very considerably. The icy, volatile liquid and the falling cloud of intensely cold carbonic acid snow had produced an immediate effect; as was evident in a blackened, smouldering patch in the midst of the blazing mass. With reviving hope I followed Jervis once more down the steps and along the passage to the end cellar, from which we brought forth a third cylinder.
By this time the passage was so filled with smoke that it was difficult either to see or to breathe, and the bright light that had at first poured in through the open doorway had already pulled down so far that Thorndyke’s figure, framed in the opening, loomed dim and shadowy amidst the smoke and against the dusky red background. We found him, when we reached the top of the steps, holding the great gas bottle and directing the stream of snow and liquid on to those parts of the wood and straw from which flames still issued.
“It will be all right,” he said in his calm, unemotional way; “the fire had not really got an effective start. The straw made a great show, but that is nearly all burnt now, and all this carbonic acid gas will soon smother the burning wood. But we must be careful that it doesn’t smother us too. The steps will be the safest place for the present.”
He opened the cock of the new cylinder and, having placed it so that it played on the most refractory part of the burning mass, backed to the steps where Jervis and I stood looking through the doorway. The fire was, as he has said, rapidly dying down. The volumes of gas produced by the evaporation of the liquid and the melting snow, cut off the supply of air so that, in place of the flames that had, at first, looked so alarming, only a dense reek of smoke arose.
“Now,” said Thorndyke, after we had waited on the steps a couple of minutes more, “I think we might make a sortie and put an end to it. If we can get the smouldering stuff off that wooden floor down on to the stone, the danger will be over.”
He led the way cautiously into the corridor, and, once more bringing his electric lamp into requisition, began to kick the smouldering cases and crates and the blackened masses of straw down the steps on to the stone floor of the passage, whither we followed them and scattered them with our feet until they were completely safe from any chance of re-ignition.
“There,” said Jervis, giving a final kick at a small heap of smoking straw, “I should think that ought to do. There’s no fear of that stuff lighting up again. And, if I may venture to make the remark, the sooner we are off these premises the happier I shall be. Our friend’s methods of entertaining his visitors are a trifle too strenuous for my taste. He might try dynamite next.”
“Yes,” I agreed; “or he might take pot shots at us with a revolver from some dark corner.”
“It is much more likely,” said Thorndyke, “that he has cleared off in anticipation of the alarm of fire. Still, it is undeniable that we shall be safer outside. Shall I go first and show you a light?”
He piloted us along the corridor and up the cobbled yard, putting away his lamp as he unlocked the wicket. There was no sign of anyone about the premises nor, when we had passed out of the gate, was there anyone in sight in the street. I looked about, expecting to see some sign of the fire; but there was no smoke visible, and only a slight smell of burning wood. The smoke must have drifted out at the back.
“Well,” Thorndyke remarked, “it has been quite an exciting little episode. And a highly satisfactory finish, as things turned out; though it might easily have been very much the reverse. But for the fortunate chance of those gas-bottles being available, I don’t think we should be alive at this moment.”
“No,” agreed Jervis. “We should be in much the same condition by this time as Batson’s late patient, Mr. Maddock, or at least, well on our way to that disembodied state. However, all’s well that ends well. Are you coming our way, Jardine?”
“I will walk a little way with you,” said I. “Then I must go back to Batson to settle up and fetch my traps.”
I walked with them to Oxford Street, and we discussed our late adventure as we went.
“It was a pretty strong hint to clear out, wasn’t it?” Jervis remarked.
“Yes,” replied Thorndyke; “it didn’t leave us much option. But the affair can’t be left at this. I shall have a watch set on those premises, and I shall make some more particular enquiries about Mr. Gill. By the way, Jardine, I haven’t your address. I’d better have it in case I want to communicate with you; and you’d better have my card in case anything turns up which you think I ought to know.”
We accordingly exchanged cards, and, as we had now reached the corner of Oxford Street, I wished my friends adieu and thoughtfully retraced my steps to Jacob Street.
London is a wonderful place. From the urban greyness of Jacob Street to the borders of Hampstead Heath was, even in those days of the slow horse tram, but a matter of minutes—a good many minutes, perhaps, but still, considerably under an hour. Yet, in that brief and leisurely journey, one exchanged the grim sordidness of a most unlovely street for the solitude and sweet rusticity of open and charming country.
A day or two after my second adventure in the mineral water works, I was leaning on the parapet of the viaduct—the handsome, red brick viaduct with which some builder, unknown to me, had spanned the pond beyond the Upper Heath, apparently with purely decorative motive, and in a spirit of sheer philanthropy. For no road seemed to lead anywhere in particular over it, and there was no reason why any wayfarer should wish to cross the pond rather than walk round it; indeed, in those days it was covered by a turfy expanse seldom trodden by any feet but those of the sheep that grazed in the meadows bordering the pond. I leaned on the parapet, smoking my pipe with deep contentment, and looking down into the placid water. Flags and rushes grew at its borders, water-lilies spread their flat leaves on its surface and a small party of urchins angled from the margin, with the keen joy of the juvenile sportsman who suspects that his proceedings are unlawful.
I had lounged on the parapet for several minutes, when I became aware of a man, approaching along the indistinct track that crossed the viaduct, and, as he drew near, I recognized him as the keeper whom I had met in Ken Wood on the morning after my discovery of the body in Millfield Lane. I would have let him pass with a smile of recognition, but he had no intention of passing. Touching his hat politely, he halted, and, having wished me good-morning, remarked:
“You didn’t tell me, sir, what it was you were looking for that morning when I met you in the wood.”
“No,” I replied, “but apparently, someone else has.”
“Well, sir, you see,” he said, “the sergeant came up the next day with a plain-clothes man to have a look round, and, as the sergeant is an old acquaintance of mine, he gave me the tip as to what they were after. I am sorry, sir, you didn’t tell me what you were looking for.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Well,” he replied, “we might have found something if we had looked while the tracks were fresh. Unfortunately there was a gale in the night that fetched down a lot of leaves, and blew up those that had already fallen, so that any foot-marks would have got hidden before the sergeant came.”
“What did the police officers seem to think about it?” I asked.
“Why, to speak the truth,” the keeper replied, “they seemed to think it was all bogey.”
“Do you mean to say,” I asked, “that they thought I had invented the whole story?”
“Oh, no, sir,” he replied, “not that. They believed you had seen a man lying in the lane, but they didn’t believe that he was a dead man, and they thought your imagination had misled you about the tracks.”
“Then, I suppose they didn’t find anything?” said I.
“No, they didn’t, and I haven’t been able to find anything myself, though I’ve had a good look round.” And then, after a brief pause: “I wonder,” he said, “if you would care to come up to the Wood and have a look at the place yourself.”
I considered for a moment. I had nothing to do for I was taking a day off, and the man’s proposal sounded rather attractive. Finally, I accepted his offer, and we turned back together towards the Wood.
Hampstead—the Hampstead of those days—was singularly rustic and remote. But, within the wood, it was incredible that the town of London actually lay within the sound of a church bell or the flight of a bullet. Along the shady paths, carpeted with moss and silvery lichen, overshadowed by the boughs of noble beeches; or in leafy hollows, with the humus of centuries under our feet, and the whispering silence of the woodland all around, we might have been treading the glades of some primeval forest. Nor was the effect of this strange remoteness less, when presently, emerging from the thicker portion of the wood, we came upon a moss-grown, half-ruinous boathouse on the sedgy margin of a lake, in which was drawn up a rustic-looking, and evidently, little-used punt.
“It’s wonderful quiet about here, sir,” the keeper remarked, as a water-hen stole out from behind a clump of high rushes and scrambled over the leaves of the water-lilies.
“And presumably,” I remarked, “it’s quieter still at night.”
“You’re right, sir,” the keeper replied. “If that man had got as far as this, he’d have had mighty little trouble in putting the body where no one was ever likely to look for it.”
“I suppose,” said I, “that you had a good look at the edges of the lake?”
“Yes,” he answered. “I went right round it, and so did the police, for that matter, and we had a good look at the punt, too. But, all the same, it wouldn’t surprise me if, one fine day, that body came floating up among the lilies; always supposing, that is,” he added, “that there really was a body.”
“How far is it,” I asked, “from the lake to the place where you met me that morning?”
“It’s only a matter of two or three minutes,” he answered, “we may as well walk that way and you can see for yourself.” Accordingly, we set forth together, and, coming presently upon one of the moss-grown paths, followed it past a large summerhouse until we came in sight of the beech beyond which I had encountered him while I was searching for the tracks. As we went, he plied me with questions as to what I had seen on the night in the lane, and I made no scruple of telling him all that I had told the police, seeing that they, on their side, had made no secret of the matter.
Of course, it was idle, after this long period—for it was now more than seven weeks since I had seen the body—to attempt anything in the nature of a search. It certainly did look as if the man who had stolen into that wood that night had been bound for the solitary lake. The punt, I had noticed, was only secured with a rope, so that the murderer—for such I assumed he must have been—could easily have carried his dreadful burden out into the middle, and there sunk it with weights, and so hidden it for ever. It was a quick, simple and easy method of hiding the traces of his crime, and, if the police had not thought it worth while to search the water with drags, there was no reason why the buried secret should not remain buried for all time.
After we had walked for some time about the pleasant, shady wood, less shady now that the yellowing leaves were beginning to fall with the passing of autumn, the keeper conducted me to the exit by which I had left on the previous occasion.
As I was passing out of the wicket, my eye fell once more on the cottage which I had then noticed, and, recalling the remark that my fair acquaintance had let fall concerning the artist to whom the derelict knife was supposed to belong, I said: “You mentioned, I think, that that house was let to an artist.”
“It was,” he replied; “but it’s empty now, the artist has gone away.”
“It must be a pleasant little house to live in,” I said, “at any rate, in summer.”
“Yes,” he replied, “a country house within an hour’s walk of the Bank of England. Would you like to have a look at it, sir? I’ve got the keys.”
Now I certainly had no intention of offering myself as a tenant, but, yet, to an idle man, there is a certain attractiveness in an empty house of an eligible kind, a certain interest in roaming through the rooms and letting one’s fancy furnish them with one’s own household goods. I accepted the man’s invitation, and, opening the wide gate that admitted to the garden from a byroad, we walked up to the door of the house.
“It’s quite a nice little place,” the keeper remarked. “There isn’t much garden, you see, but then, you’ve got the Heath all around; and there’s a small stable and coachhouse if you should be wanting to go into town.”
“Did the last tenant keep any kind of carriage?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” said the keeper, “but I fancy he used to hire a little cart sometimes when he had things to bring in from town; but I don’t know very much about him or his habits.”
We walked through the empty rooms together looking out of the windows and commenting on the pleasant prospects that all of them commanded, and talking about the man who had last lived in the house.
“He was a queer sort of fellow,” said the keeper. “He and his wife seem to have lived here all alone without any servant, and they seem often to have left the house to itself for a day or two at a time; but he could paint. I have stopped and had a look when he has been at work, and it was wonderful to see how he knocked off those pictures. He didn’t seem to use brushes, but he had a lot of knives, like little trowels, and he used to shovel the paint on with them, and he always wore gloves when he was painting; didn’t like to get the paint on his hands, I suppose.”
“It sounds as if it would be very awkward,” I said.
“Just what I should have thought,” the keeper agreed. “But he didn’t seem to find it so. This seems to be the place that he worked in.”
Apparently the keeper was right. The room, which we had now entered, was evidently the late studio, and did not appear to have been cleaned up since the tenant left. The floor was littered with scraps of paper on which a palette-knife had been cleaned, with empty paint-tubes and one or two broken and worn-out brushes, and, in a packing-case, which seemed to have served as a receptacle for rubbish, were one or two canvases that had been torn from their stretchers and thrown away. I picked them out and glanced at them with some interest, remembering what my fair friend had said. For the most part, they were mere experiments or failures, deliberately defaced with strokes or daubs of paint, but one of them was a quite spirited and attractive sketch, rough and unfinished, but skilfully executed and undefaced. I stretched out the crumpled canvas and looked at it with considerable interest. It represented Millfield Lane, and showed the large elms and the posts and the high fence under which I had sheltered in the rain. In fact, it appeared to have been taken from the exact spot on which the body had been lying, and from which I had made my own drawing; not that there was anything in the latter coincidence, for it was the only sketchable spot in the lane.
“It’s really quite a nice sketch,” I said; “it seems a pity to leave it here among the rubbish.”
“It does, sir,” the keeper agreed. “If you like it, you had better roll it up and put it in your pocket. You won’t be robbing anyone.”
As it seemed that I was but rescuing it from a rubbish-heap, I ventured to follow the keeper’s advice, and, rolling the canvas up, carefully stowed it in my pocket. And shortly after as I had now seen all that there was to see, which was mighty little, we left the house, and, at the gate, the keeper took leave of me with a touch of his hat.
I made my way slowly back towards my lodgings by way of the Spaniard’s Road and Hampstead Lane, turning over in my mind as I went, the speculation suggested by my visit to the wood. Of the existence of the lake I had not been previously aware. Now that I had seen it, I felt very little doubt that it was known to the mysterious murderer—for such I felt convinced he was—who must have been lurking in the lane that night when I was sheltering under the lee of the fence. The route that he had then taken appeared to be the direct route to the lake. That he was carrying the body, I had no doubt whatever; and, seeing that he had carried it so far, it appeared probable that he had some definite hiding-place in view. And what hiding-place could be so suitable as this remote piece of still water? No digging, no troublesome and dangerous preparation would be necessary. There was the punt in readiness to bear him to the deep water in the middle; a silent, easily-handled conveyance. A few stones, or some heavy object from the boat-house, would be all that was needful; and in a moment he would be rid for ever of the dreadful witness of his crime.
Thus reflecting—not without dissatisfaction at the passive part that I had played in this sinister affair—I passed through the turnstile, or “kissing-gate,” at the entrance to Millfield Lane. Almost certainly, the murderer or the victim or both, had passed through that very gate on the night of the tragedy. The thought came to me with added solemnity with the recollection of the silent wood and the dark, still water fresh in my mind, and caused me unconsciously to tread more softly and walk more sedately than usual.
The lane was little frequented at any time and now, at mid-day, was almost as deserted as at midnight. Very remote it seemed, too, and very quiet, with a silence that recalled the hush of the wood. And yet the silence was not quite unbroken. From somewhere ahead, from one of the many windings of the tortuous lane, came the sound of hurried footsteps. I stopped to listen. There were two persons, one treading lightly, the other more heavily, apparently a man and a woman. And both were running—running fast.
There was nothing remarkable in this, perhaps; but yet the sound smote on my ear with a certain note of alarm that made me quicken my pace and listen yet more intently. And suddenly there came another sound; a muffled, whimpering cry like that of a frightened woman. Instantly I gave an answering shout and sprang forward at a swift run.
I had turned one of the numerous corners and was racing down a straight stretch of the lane when a woman darted round the corner ahead, and ran towards me, holding out her hands. I recognized her at a glance, though now she was dishevelled, pale, wild-eyed, breathless and nearly frantic with terror, and rage against her assailant spurred me on to greater speed. But when I would have passed her to give chase to the wretch, she clutched my arm frantically with both hands and detained me.
“Let me go and catch the scoundrel!” I exclaimed; but she only clung the tighter.
“No,” she panted, “don’t leave me! I am terrified! Don’t go away!”
I ground my teeth. Even as we stood, I could hear the ruffian’s footsteps receding as rapidly as they had advanced. In a few moments he would be beyond pursuit.
“Do let me go and stop that villain!” I implored. “You’re quite safe now, and you can follow me and keep me in sight.”
But she shook her head passionately, and, still clutching my sleeve with one hand, pressed the other to her heart.
“No, no, no!” she gasped, with a catch in her voice that was almost a sob, “I can’t be alone! I am frightened. Oh! Please don’t go away from me!”
What could I do? The poor girl was evidently beside herself with terror, and exhausted by her frantic flight. It would have been cruel to leave her in that state. But all the same, it was infuriating. I had no idea what the man had done to terrify her in this way. But that was of no consequence. The natural impulse of a healthy young man when he learns that a woman has been ill-used is to hammer the offender effectively in the first place, and then to inquire into the affair. That was what I wanted to do; but it was not to be.
“Well,” I said, by way of compromise, “let us walk back together. Perhaps we may be able to find out which way the man went.”
To this she agreed. I drew her arm through mine—for she was still trembling and looked faint and weak—and we began to retrace her steps towards Highgate. Of course the man was nowhere to be seen, and by the time that we had turned the sharp corner where I had found the body of the priest, the man was not only out of sight, but his footsteps were no longer audible.
Still we went on for some distance in the hopes of meeting someone who could tell us which way the miscreant had gone. But we met nobody. Only, some distance past the posts, we came in sight of a sketching box and a camp-stool, lying by the side of the path.
“Surely those are your things?” I said.
“Yes,” she answered. “I had forgotten all about them. I dropped them when I began to run.”
I picked up the box and the stool, and debated with myself whether it was worth while to go on any farther. From where we stood, nothing was to be seen, for the lane was still enclosed on both sides by a seven foot fence of oak boards. But the chance of overtaking the fugitive was not to be considered; by this time he was probably out of the lane on the Heath or in the surrounding meadows; and meanwhile, my companion, though calmer and less breathless, looked very pale and shaken.
“I don’t know that it’s any use,” I said, “to tire you by going any farther. The man is evidently gone.”
She seemed relieved at my decision, and it then occurred to me to suggest that she should sit down awhile on the bank under the high fence to recover herself, and to this, too, she assented gladly.
“If it wouldn’t distress you,” I said, “would you mind telling me what had happened?”
She pondered for a few seconds and then answered: “It doesn’t sound much in the telling and I expect you will think me very silly to be so much upset.”
“I’m sure I shan’t,” I said, with perfect confidence in the correctness of my statement.
“Well,” she said, “what happened was this as nearly as I can remember: I was coming up the path from the ponds and I had to pass a man who was leaning against the fence by the stile. As I came near to him, he looked at me, at first, in quite an ordinary way, and then, he suddenly began to stare in a most singular and disturbing fashion, not at me, so much, as at this little crucifix which I wear hung from my neck. As I passed through the turnstile, he spoke to me: ‘Would you mind letting me look at that crucifix?’ he asked. It was a most astonishing piece of impertinence, and I was so taken aback that I hardly had the presence of mind to refuse. However, I did, and very decidedly, too. Then he came up to me, and, in a most threatening and alarming manner, said: ‘You found that crucifix. You picked it up somewhere near here. It’s mine, and I’ll ask you to let me have it, if you please.’
“Now this was perfectly untrue. The crucifix was given to me by my father when I was quite a little child, and I have worn it ever since I have been grown up—ever since he died, in fact, six years ago. I told the man this, but he made no pretence of believing me, and was evidently about to renew his demand, when two labourers appeared, coming down the lane. I thought this a good opportunity to escape, and walked away quickly up the lane; it was very silly of me; I ought to have gone the other way.”
“Of course you ought,” I agreed, “you ought to have got out into a public road at once.”
“Yes, I see that now,” she said. “It was very foolish of me. However, I walked on pretty quickly, for there was something in the man’s face that had frightened me, and I was anxious to get home. I looked back, from time to time, and, when I saw no sign of the man, I began to recover myself; but just as I had got to the most solitary part of the lane, just about where we are now, shut in by these high fences, I heard quick footsteps behind me. I looked back and saw the man coming after me. Then, I suppose, I got in a sudden panic, for I dropped my sketching things and began to run. But as soon as I began to run, the man broke into a run too. I raced for my life, and when I heard the man gaining on me, I suppose I must have called out. Then I heard your shout from the upper part of the lane and ran on faster than ever to gain your protection. That’s all, and I suppose you think that I have been making a great fuss about nothing.”
“I don’t think anything of the kind,” I said, “and neither would our absent friend if I could get hold of him. By the way, what sort of person was he?—a tramp?”
“Oh, no, quite a respectable looking person; in fact, he would have passed for a gentleman.”
“Can you give any sort of description of him, not that verbal descriptions are of much use except in the case of a hunchback or a Chinaman or some other easily identifiable creature.”
“No, they are not,” she agreed, “and I don’t think that I can tell you much about this man excepting that he was clean-shaved, of medium height, quite well dressed, and wore a round hat and slate-coloured suede gloves.”
“I’m afraid we shan’t get hold of him from that description,” I said. “The only thing that you can do is to avoid solitary places for the present and not to come through this lane again alone.”
“Yes,” she said. “I suppose I must, but it’s very unfortunate. One cannot always take a companion when one goes sketching even if it were desirable, which it is not.”
As to the desirability, in the case of a good-looking girl, of wandering about alone in solitary places, I had my own opinions; and very definite opinions they were. But I kept them to myself. And so we sat silent for awhile. She was still pale and agitated, and perhaps her recital of her misadventure had not been wholly beneficial. At the moment that this idea occurred to me, a crackling in my breast-pocket reminded me of the forgotten canvas, and I bethought me that perhaps a change of subject might divert her mind from her very disagreeable experience. Accordingly, I drew the canvas out of my pocket, and, unrolling it, asked her what she thought of the sketch. In a moment she became quite animated.
“Why,” she exclaimed, “this looks exactly like the work of that artist who was working on the Heath a little while ago.”
“It is his,” I replied, considerably impressed and rather astonished at her instantaneous recognition; “but I didn’t know you were so familiar with his work.”
“I’m not very familiar with it,” she replied; “but, as I told you, I sometimes managed to steal a glance or two when I passed him. You see, his technique is so peculiar that it’s easily recognized, and it interested me very much. I should have liked to stop and watch him and get a lesson.”
“It is rather peculiar work,” I said, looking at the canvas with new interest. “Very solid and yet very smooth.”
“Yes. It is typical knife-work, almost untouched with the brush. That was what interested me. The knife is a dangerous tool for a comparative tyro like myself, but yet one would like to learn how to use it. Did he give you this sketch?”
I smiled guiltily. “The truth is,” I admitted, “I stole it.”
“How dreadful of you!” she said, “I suppose that you could not be bribed to steal another?”
“I would steal it for nothing if you asked me,” I answered, “and meanwhile, you had better take possession of this one. It will be of more use to you than to me.”
She shook her head: “No, I won’t do that,” she said, “though it is most kind of you. You paint, I think, don’t you?”
“I’m only the merest amateur,” I replied. “I annexed the sketch for the sake of the subject. I have rather an affection for this lane.”
“So had I,” said she, “until to-day. Now, I hate it, but, might I ask how you managed your theft?”
I told her about the empty cottage and the rejected canvases in the rubbish box.
“I’m afraid none of the others would be of any use to you because he had drawn a brushful of paint across each of them.”
“Oh, that wouldn’t matter,” she said. “The brush-strokes would be on dry paint and could easily be scraped off. Besides, it is not the subject but the technique that interests me.”
“Then I will get into the cottage somehow and purloin the remaining canvases for you.”
“Oh, but I mustn’t give you all this trouble,” she protested.
“It won’t be any trouble,” I said. “I shall quite enjoy a deliberate and determined robbery. But where shall I send the spoil?”
She produced her card-case, and, selecting a card, handed it to me, with a smile: “It seems, to me,” she said, “that I am inciting you to robbery and acting as a receiver of stolen goods, but I suppose there’s no harm in it, though I feel that I ought not to give you all this trouble.”
I made the usual polite rejoinder as I took from her the little magical slip of pasteboard that, in a moment, transformed her from a stranger to an acquaintance, and gave her a local habitation and a name. Before bestowing it in my pocket-book, I glanced at the neat copper-plate and read the inscription: “Miss Sylvia Vyne. The Hawthorns. North End.”
The effect of our conversation had answered my expectations. Her agitation had passed off, the colour had come back to her cheeks, and, in fact, she seemed quite recovered. Apparently she thought so herself, for she rose, saying that she now felt well enough to walk home, and held out her hand for the colour-box and stool.
“I think,” said I, “that if you won’t consider me intrusive, I should like to see you safely out on to an inhabited road at least.”
“I shall accept your escort gratefully,” she replied, “as far as the end of the lane, or farther if it is not taking you too much out of your way.”
Needless to say, I would gladly have escorted so agreeable and winsome a protegée from John o’ Groats to Land’s End and found it not out of my way at all; and when she passed out of the gate into Hampstead Lane, I clung tenaciously to the box and stool and turned towards “The Spaniards” as though no such thing as a dismissal had ever been contemplated. In fact, with the reasonable excuse of carrying the impedimenta, I maintained my place by her side in the absence of a definite congé; and so we walked together, talking quite easily, principally about pictures and painting, until, in the pleasant little hamlet, she halted by a garden gate, and, taking her possessions from me, held out a friendly hand.
“Good-bye,” she said. “I can’t thank you enough for all your help and kindness. I hope I have not been very troublesome to you.”
I assured her that she had been most amenable, and, when I had once more cautioned her to avoid solitary places, we exchanged a cordial hand-shake and parted, she to enter the pleasant, rustic-looking house, and I to betake myself back to my lodgings, lightening the way with much agreeable and self-congratulatory reflection.
At my lodgings, which I reached at an unconscionably late hour for lunch, I found a little surprise awaiting me; a short note from Dr. Thorndyke asking me if I should be at liberty early on the following afternoon to show him the spot on which I had found the mysterious body. Of course, I answered by return, begging him to come straight on from the hospital to an early lunch, over which we could discuss the facts of the case before setting out. Having dispatched my letter, I called at the offices of the house agent who had the letting of the cottage on the Heath, to see if he had duplicate keys. Fortunately he had, and was willing to entrust them to me on the understanding that they should be returned some time during the next day. I did not, however, go on to the cottage, for it occurred to me that Thorndyke would probably wish to visit the wood, and I could make my visit and purloin the canvases then.
A telegram on the following morning informed me that Thorndyke would be with me at twelve o’clock, and, punctually to the minute, he arrived.
“I hope you don’t mind me swooping down on you in this fashion,” he said, as the servant showed him into the room.
I assured him, very truthfully, that I was delighted to be honoured by a visit from him, and he then proceeded to explain.
“You may wonder, Jardine, why I am busying myself about this case, which is really no business of mine, or, at least, appears to be none; but the fact is, that as a teacher and a practitioner of Medical Jurisprudence, I find it advisable to look into any unusual cases. Of course, there is always a considerable probability that I may be consulted concerning any out of the way case; but, apart from that, I have the ordinary specialist’s interest in anything remarkable in my own speciality.”
“I should think,” said I, “that it would be well for me to give you all the facts before we start.”
“Exactly, Jardine,” he replied, “that is what I want. Tell me all you know about the affair and then we shall be able to test our conclusions on the spot.”
He produced a large scale ordnance map, and, folding it under my direction, so that it showed only the region in which we were interested, he stood it up on the table against the water bottle, where we could both see it, and marked on it with a pencil each spot as I described it.
It is not necessary for me to record our conversation. I told him the whole story as I have already told it to the reader, pointing out on the map the exact locality where each event occurred.
“It’s a most remarkable case, Jardine,” was his thoughtful comment when I had finished, “most remarkable; curiously puzzling and inconsistent too. For you see that on the one hand, it looks like a casual or accidental crime, and yet, on the other, strongly suggests premeditation. No man, one would think, could have planned to commit a murder in what is, after all, a public thoroughfare; and yet, the long distance which the body seems to have been carried, and the apparently selected hiding-place, seem to suggest a previously considered plan.”
“You think that there is no doubt that the man was really dead?” I asked.
“Had you any doubt at the time yourself?”
“None at all,” I replied, “it was only the disappearance of the body, and, perhaps, the sergeant’s suggestion, that made me think it possible that I might have been mistaken.”
Thorndyke shook his head. “No, Jardine,” said he, “the man was dead. We are safe in assuming that; and on that assumption our investigations must be based. The next question is, how was the body taken away? Did you measure the fence?”
“No, but I should say it is about seven feet high.”
“And what kind of fence is it? Are there any footholds?”
“I can show you exactly what the fence is like,” I answered. “That sketch, which I have pinned up on the wall, was apparently painted from the exact spot on which the body lay. That fence on the right-hand side is the one under which I sheltered and is exactly like the one over which the body seems to have been lifted.”
Thorndyke rose and walked over to the sketch, which I had fixed to the wall with drawing-pins.
“Not a bad sketch, this, Jardine,” he remarked; “very smartly put in, apparently mostly with the knife. Where did you get it?”
I had to confess that the canvas was unlawfully come by, and told him how I had obtained it.
“You don’t know the artist’s name?” said Thorndyke, looking closely at the sketch.
“No. In fact, I know nothing about him, excepting that he worked mostly with a small painting-knife, and usually wore kid gloves.”
“You don’t mean that he worked in gloves?” said Thorndyke.
“So I am told,” said I. “I never saw him.”
“It’s very odd,” said Thorndyke. “I have heard of men wearing a glove on the palette-hand to keep off the midges, and many men paint in gloves in exceptionally cold weather. But this sketch seems to have been painted in the summer.”
“I suppose,” said I, “the midges don’t confine their attentions to the palette-hand. And after all, to a man who worked entirely with the knife, a glove wouldn’t be really in the way.”
“No,” Thorndyke agreed, “that is true.” He looked closely at the sketch, and even took out his pocket lens to help his vision, which seemed almost unnecessary. It appeared that he was as much interested in the unknown artist’s peculiar technique as was my friend, Miss Sylvia Vyne.
“By the way,” said he, when he had resumed his seat at the table, “you were telling me about some kind of gold trinket that you had picked up at the foot of the fence. Shall we have a look at it?”
I fetched the little gold object from the dispatch box in which I had locked it up, and handed it to him. He turned it over in his fingers, read the letters that were engraved on it, and examined the little piece of silk cord that was attached to one ring.
“There is no doubt,” said he, “as to the nature of this object, nor of its connection with the dead man. This is evidently a reliquary, and these initials engraved upon it bear out exactly your description of the body. S.V.D.P. evidently means St. Vincent de Paul, who, as you probably know, was a saint who was distinguished for his works of charity. You have mentioned that the dead man wore a Roman collar, with a narrow, dark stripe up the front. That means that he was the lay-brother of some religious order, probably some philanthropic order, to whom St. Vincent de Paul would be an object of special devotion. The other letters, A.M.D.G., are the initials of the words Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam—the motto of the Society of Jesus. But as St. Vincent de Paul was not a Jesuit saint, the motto probably refers to the owner of the reliquary, who may have been a Jesuit or a friend of the Society. It was apparently attached—perhaps to the neck—by this silk cord, which seems to have been frayed nearly through, and probably broke when the body was drawn over the top of the fence.”
“I suppose I ought to have shown it to the police,” I said.
“I suppose you ought,” he replied, “but, as you haven’t, I think we had better say nothing about it now.”
He handed it back to me, and I dropped it into my pocket, intending to return it presently to the dispatch box. A few minutes later, we sallied forth on our journey of exploration.
It is not necessary to describe this journey in detail since I have already taken the reader over the ground more than once. We went, of course, to the place where I had found the body and walked right through to Hampstead Lane. Then we returned, and reconstituted the circumstances of that eventful night, after which, I conducted Thorndyke to the place where I assumed that the body had been lifted over the fence.
“I suppose,” I said, “we must go round and pick up the track from the other side.”
He looked up and down the lane and smiled. “Would your quondam professor lose your respect for ever, Jardine, if you saw him climb over a fence in a frock coat and a topper?”
“No,” I answered, “but it might look a little quaint if anyone else saw you.”
“I think we will risk that,” he said. “There is no one about, and I should rather like to try a little experiment. Would you mind if I hoisted you over the fence? You are something of an out-size, but then, so am I, too, which balances the conditions.”
Of course I had no objection, and, when we had looked up and down the lane and listened to make sure that we had no observers, Thorndyke picked me up, with an ease that rather surprised me, and hoisted me above the level of the fence.
“Is it all clear on the other side?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered, “there’s no one in sight.”
“Then I want you to be quite passive,” he said, and with this, he hoisted me up further until I hung with my own weight across the top of the fence. Leaving me hanging thus, he sprang up lightly, and, having got astride at the top, dropped down on the other side, when he once more took hold of me and drew me over.
“It wasn’t so very difficult,” he said. “Of course, it would have been more so to a shorter man, but, on the other hand, it is extremely unlikely that the body was anything like your size and weight.”
We now followed the track up to the wood, which we entered by an opening in the fence, through which I assumed that the murderer had probably passed. I conducted Thorndyke by the nearest route to the boat-house, and, when he had thoroughly examined the place and made notes of the points that appeared to interest him, I showed him the way out by the turnstile.
It was here when we came in sight of the cottage that I bethought me of my promise to Miss Vyne, and somewhat sheepishly explained the matter to Thorndyke.
“It won’t take me a minute to go in and sneak the things,” I said apologetically, and was proposing that he should walk on slowly, when he interrupted me.
“I’ll come in with you,” said he. “There may be something else to filch. Besides, I am rather partial to empty houses. There is something quite interesting, I think, in looking over the traces of recent occupation, and speculating on the personality and habits of the late occupiers. Don’t you find it so?”
I said “Yes,” truthfully enough, for it was a feeling of this kind that had first led me to look over the cottage. But my interest was nothing to Thorndyke’s; for no sooner had I let him in at the front door, than he began to browse about through the empty rooms and passages, for all the world like a cat that has just been taken to a new house.
“This was evidently the studio,” he remarked, as we entered the room from which I had taken the canvas. “He doesn’t seem to have had much of an outfit, as he appears to have worked on his sketching-easel; you can see the indentations made by the toe-points, and there are no marks of the castors of a studio easel. You notice, too, that he sat on a camp-stool to work.”
It did not appear to me to matter very much what he had sat on, but I kept this opinion to myself and watched Thorndyke curiously as he picked up the empty paint tubes and scrutinized them one after the other. His inquisitiveness filled me with amused astonishment. He turned out the rubbish box completely, and having looked over every inch of the discarded canvases, he began systematically to examine, one by one, the pieces of paper on which the late resident had wiped his palette-knife.
Having rolled up and pocketed the waste canvases, I expressed myself as ready to depart.
“If you’re not in a hurry,” said Thorndyke, “I should like to look over the rest of the premises.”
He spoke as though we were inspecting some museum or exhibition, and, indeed, his interest and attention, as he wandered from room to room, were greater than that of the majority of visitors to a public gallery. He even insisted on visiting the little stable and coach-house, and when he had explored them both, ascended the rickety steps to the loft over the latter.
“I suppose,” said I, “this was the lumber room or store. Judging by the quantity of straw it would seem as if some cases had been unpacked here.”
“Probably,” agreed Thorndyke. “In fact, you can see where the cases have been dragged along, and also, by that smooth indented line, where some heavy metallic object has been slid along the floor. Perhaps if we look over the straw, we may be able to judge what those cases contained.”
It didn’t seem to me to matter a brass farthing what they contained, but again I made no remark; and together we moved the great mass of straw, almost handful by handful, from one end of the loft to the other, while Thorndyke, not only examined the straw but even closely scrutinized the floor on which it lay.
As far as I could see, all this minute and apparently purposeless searching was entirely without result, until we were in the act of removing the last armful of straw from the corner; and even then the object that came to light did not appear a very remarkable one under the circumstances, though Thorndyke seemed to find what appeared to me a most unreasonable interest in it. The object was a pair of canvas-pliers, which Thorndyke picked up almost eagerly and examined with profound attention.
“What do you make of that, Jardine?” he asked, at length, handing the implement to me.
“It’s a pair of canvas-pliers,” I replied.
“Obviously,” he rejoined, “but what do you suppose they have been used for?”
I opined that they had been used for straining canvases, that being their manifest function.
“But,” objected Thorndyke, “he would hardly have strained his canvases up here. Besides, you will notice that they have, in fact, been used for something else. You observe that the handles are slightly bent, as if something had been held with great force, and if you look at the jaws, you will see that that something was a metallic object about three-quarters of an inch wide with sharp corners. Now, what do you make of that?”
I looked at the pliers, inwardly reflecting that I didn’t care twopence what the object was, and finally said that I would give it up.
“The problem does not interest you keenly,” Thorndyke remarked with a smile; “and yet it ought to, you know. However, we may consider the matter on some future occasion. Meanwhile, I shall follow your pernicious example and purloin the pliers.”
His interest in this complete stranger appeared to me very singular, and it seemed for the moment to have displaced that in the mysterious case which was the object of his visit to me.
“A strange, vagabond sort of man that artist must have been,” he remarked, as we walked home across the Heath, “but I suppose one picks up vagabond habits in travelling about the world.”
“Do you gather that he had travelled much, then?” I asked.
“He appears to have visited New York, Brussels and Florence, which is a selection suggesting other travels.”
I was wondering vaguely how Thorndyke had arrived at these facts, and was indeed about to ask him, when he suddenly changed the subject by saying:
“I suppose, Jardine, you don’t wander about this place alone at night?”
“I do sometimes,” I replied.
“Then I shouldn’t,” he said; “you must remember that a very determined attempt has been made on your life, and it would be unreasonable to suppose that it was made without some purpose. But that purpose is still unaccomplished. You don’t know who your enemy is, and, consequently, can take no precautions against him excepting by keeping away from solitary places. It is an uncomfortable thought, but at present, you have to remember that any chance stranger may be an intending murderer. So be on your guard.”
I promised to bear his warning in mind, though I must confess his language seemed to me rather exaggerated; and so we walked on, chatting about various matters until we arrived at my lodgings.
Thorndyke was easily persuaded to come in and have tea with me, and while we were waiting for its arrival, he renewed his examination of the sketch upon the wall.
“Aren’t you going to have this strained on a stretcher?” he asked.
I replied “yes,” and that I intended to take it with me the next time I went into town.
“Let me take it for you,” said Thorndyke. “I should like to show it to Jervis to illustrate the route that we have marked on the map. Then I can have it left at any place that you like.”
I mentioned the name of an artist’s-colourman in the Hampstead Road, and, unpinning the canvas, rolled it up and handed it to him.
He took it from me and, rolling it up methodically and carefully, bestowed it in his breast pocket. Then he brought forth the map, and, as we drank our tea and talked over our investigations, we checked our route on it and marked the position of the cottage. Shortly after tea he took his leave, and I then occupied an agreeable half-hour in composing a letter to Miss Vyne to accompany the loot from the deserted house.