The Vanishing Man

by R. Austin Freeman

  CHAPTER VI

  SIDELIGHTS

  The association of coal with potatoes is one upon which I havefrequently speculated, without arriving at any more satisfactoryexplanation than that both products are of the earth, earthy. Of theconnection itself Barnard's practice furnished several instances besidesMrs. Jablett's establishment in Fleur-de-Lys Court, one of which was adark and mysterious cavern a foot below the level of the street, thatburrowed under an ancient house on the west side of Fetter Lane--acrinkly, timber house of the three-decker type that leaned backdrunkenly from the road as if about to sit down in its own back yard.

  Passing this repository of the associated products about ten o'clock inthe morning, I perceived in the shadow of the cavern no less a personthan Miss Oman. She saw me at the same moment, and beckoned peremptorilywith a hand that held a large Spanish onion. I approached with adeferential smile.

  "What a magnificent onion, Miss Oman! and how generous of you to offerit to me--"

  "I wasn't offering it to you. But there! Isn't it just like a man--"

  "Isn't what just like a man?" I interrupted. "If you mean the onion--"

  "I don't!" she snapped; "and I wish you wouldn't talk such a parcel ofnonsense. A grown man and a member of a serious profession, too! Youought to know better."

  "I suppose I ought," I said reflectively. And she continued:

  "I called in at the surgery just now."

  "To see me?"

  "What else should I come for? Do you suppose that I called to consultthe bottle-boy?"

  "Certainly not, Miss Oman. So you find the lady doctor no use, afterall?"

  Miss Oman gnashed her teeth at me (and very fine teeth they were, too).

  "I called," she said majestically, "on behalf of Miss Bellingham."

  My facetiousness evaporated instantly. "I hope Miss Bellingham is notill," I said with a sudden anxiety that elicited a sardonic smile fromMiss Oman.

  "No," was the reply, "she is not ill, but she has cut her hand ratherbadly. It's her right hand, too, and she can't afford to lose the use ofit, not being a great, hulking, lazy, lolloping man. So you had bettergo and put some stuff on it."

  With this advice, Miss Oman whisked to the right-about and vanished intothe depths of the cavern like the Witch of Wokey, while I hurried on tothe surgery to provide myself with the necessary instruments andmaterials, and thence proceeded to Nevill's Court.

  Miss Oman's juvenile maid-servant, who opened the door to me, stated theexisting conditions with epigrammatic conciseness:

  "Mr. Bellingham is hout, sir; but Miss Bellingham is hin."

  Having thus delivered herself she retreated towards the kitchen and Iascended the stairs, at the head of which I found Miss Bellinghamawaiting me with her right hand encased in what looked like a whiteboxing-glove.

  "I am glad you have come," she said. "Phyllis--Miss Oman, you know--haskindly bound up my hand, but I should like you to see that it is allright."

  We went into the sitting-room, where I laid out my paraphernalia on thetable while I inquired into the particulars of the accident.

  "It is most unfortunate that it should have happened just now," shesaid, as I wrestled with one of those remarkable feminine knots that,while they seem to defy the utmost efforts of human ingenuity to untie,yet have a singular habit of untying themselves at inopportune moments.

  "Why just now, in particular?" I asked.

  "Because I have some specially important work to do. A very learned ladywho is writing a historical book has commissioned me to collect all theliterature relating to the Tell el Amarna letters--the cuneiformtablets, you know, of Amenhotep the Fourth."

  "Well," I said soothingly, "I expect your hand will soon be well."

  "Yes, but that won't do. The work has to be done immediately. I have tosend in the completed notes not later than this day week, and it will bequite impossible. I am dreadfully disappointed."

  By this time I had unwound the voluminous wrappings and exposed theinjury--a deep gash in the palm that must have narrowly missed agood-sized artery. Obviously the hand would be useless for fully a week.

  "I suppose," she said, "you couldn't patch it up so that I could writewith it?"

  I shook my head.

  "No, Miss Bellingham. I shall have to put it on a splint. We can't runany risks with a deep wound like this."

  "Then I shall have to give up the commission, and I don't know how myclient will get the work done in the time. You see, I am pretty well upin the literature of Ancient Egypt; in fact, I was to receive specialpayment on that account. And it would have been such an interestingtask, too. However, it can't be helped."

  I proceeded methodically with the application of the dressings, andmeanwhile reflected. It was evident that she was deeply disappointed.Loss of work meant loss of money, and it needed but a glance at herrusty black dress to see that there was little margin for that.Possibly, too, there was some special need to be met. Her manner seemedalmost to imply that there was. And at this point I had a brilliantidea.

  "I'm not sure that it can't be helped," said I.

  She looked at me inquiringly, and I continued: "I am going to make aproposition, and I shall ask you to consider it with an open mind."

  "That sounds rather portentous," said she; "but I promise. What is it?"

  "It is this: When I was a student I acquired the useful art of writingshorthand. I am not a lightning reporter, you understand, but I can takematter down from dictation at quite respectable speed."

  "Yes."

  "Well, I have several hours free every day--usually, the whole of theafternoon up to six or half-past--and it occurs to me that if you wereto go to the Museum in the mornings you could get out your books, lookup passages (you could do that without using your right hand), and putin book-marks. Then I could come along in the afternoon and you couldread out the selected passages to me, and I could take them down inshorthand. We should get through as much in a couple of hours as youcould in a day using longhand."

  "Oh, but how kind of you, Doctor Berkeley!" she exclaimed. "How verykind! Of course, I couldn't think of taking up all your leisure in thatway; but I do appreciate your kindness very much."

  I was rather chapfallen at this very definite refusal, but persistedfeebly:

  "I wish you would. It may seem rather cheek for a comparative strangerlike me to make such a proposal to a lady; but if you'd been a man--inthese special circumstances--I should have made it all the same, and youwould have accepted as a matter of course."

  "I doubt that. At any rate, I am not a man. I sometimes wish I were."

  "Oh, I am sure you are much better as you are!" I exclaimed, with suchearnestness that we both laughed. And at this moment Mr. Bellinghamentered the room carrying several large and evidently brand-new books ina strap.

  "Well, I'm sure!" he exclaimed genially; "here are pretty goings on.Doctor and patient giggling like a pair of schoolgirls! What's thejoke?"

  He thumped his parcel of books down on the table and listened smilinglywhile my unconscious witticism was expounded.

  "The Doctor's quite right," he said. "You'll do as you are, chick; butthe Lord knows what sort of man you would make. You take his advice andlet well alone."

  Finding him in this genial frame of mind, I ventured to explain myproposition to him and to enlist his support. He considered it withattentive approval, and when I had finished turned to his daughter.

  "What is your objection, chick?" he asked.

  "It would give Doctor Berkeley such a fearful lot of work," sheanswered.

  "It would give him a fearful lot of pleasure," I said. "It would,really."

  "Then why not?" said Mr. Bellingham. "We don't mind being under anobligation to the Doctor, do we?"

  "Oh, it wasn't that!" she exclaimed hastily.

  "Then take him at his word. He means it. It is a kind action and he'lllike doing it, I'm sure. That's all right, Doctor; she accepts, don'tyou, chick?"

  "Yes, if you say so, I do; and most
thankfully."

  She accompanied the acceptance with a gracious smile that was in itselfa large payment on account, and when we had made the necessaryarrangements, I hurried away in a state of the most perfect satisfactionto finish my morning's work and order an early lunch.

  When I called for her a couple of hours later I found her waiting in thegarden with the shabby handbag, of which I relieved her, and we setforth together, watched jealously by Miss Oman, who had accompanied herto the gate.

  As I walked up the court with this wonderful maid by my side I couldhardly believe in my good fortune. By her presence and my own resultinghappiness the mean surroundings became glorified and the commonestobjects transfigured into things of beauty. What a delightfulthoroughfare, for instance, was Fetter Lane, with its quaint charm andmediaeval grace! I snuffed the cabbage-laden atmosphere and seemed tobreathe the scent of the asphodel. Holborn was even as the ElysianFields; the omnibus that bore us westward was a chariot of glory; andthe people who swarmed verminously on the pavements bore the semblanceof the children of light.

  Love is a foolish thing judged by workaday standards, and the thoughtsand actions of lovers foolish beyond measure. But the workaday standardis the wrong one, after all; for the utilitarian mind does but busyitself with the trivial and transitory interests of life, behind whichlooms the great and everlasting reality of the love of man and woman.There is more significance in a nightingale's song in the hush of asummer night than in all the wisdom of Solomon (who, by the way, was notwithout his little experiences of the tender passion).

  The janitor in the little glass box by the entrance to the libraryinspected us and passed us on, with a silent benediction, to the lobby,whence (when I had handed my stick to a bald-headed demigod and receiveda talismanic disc in exchange) we entered the enormous rotunda of thereading-room.

  I have often thought that, if some lethal vapour of highly preservativeproperties--such as formaldehyde, for instance--could be shed into theatmosphere of this apartment, the entire and complete collection ofbooks and bookworms would be well worth preserving, for theenlightenment of posterity, as a sort of anthropological appendix to themain collection of the Museum. For, surely, nowhere else in the worldare so many strange and abnormal human beings gathered together in oneplace. And a curious question that must have occurred to many observersis: Whence do these singular creatures come, and whither do they go whenthe very distinct-faced clock (adjusted to literary eye-sight) proclaimsclosing time? The tragic-faced gentleman, for instance, with thecorkscrew ringlets that bob up and down like spiral springs as he walks?Or the short, elderly gentleman in the black cassock and bowler hat, whoshatters your nerves by turning suddenly and revealing himself as amiddle-aged woman? Whither do they go? One never sees them elsewhere. Dothey steal away at closing time into the depths of the Museum and hidethemselves until morning in sarcophagi or mummy cases? Or do they creepthrough spaces in the book-shelves and spend the night behind thevolumes in a congenial atmosphere of leather and antique paper? Who cansay? What I do know is that when Ruth Bellingham entered thereading-room she appeared in comparison with these like a creature ofanother order; even as the head of Antinous, which formerly stood (ithas since been moved) amidst the portrait-busts of the Roman Emperors,seemed like the head of a god set in a portrait gallery of illustriousbaboons.

  "What have we got to do?" I asked when we had found a vacant seat. "Doyou want to look up the catalogue?"

  "No, I have the tickets in my bag. The books are waiting in the 'keptbooks' department."

  I placed my hat on the leather-covered shelf, dropped her gloves intoit--how delightfully intimate and companionable it seemed!--altered thenumbers on the tickets, and then we proceeded together to the "keptbooks" desk to collect the volumes that contained the material for ourday's work.

  It was a blissful afternoon. Two and a half hours of happiness unalloyeddid I spend at that shiny, leather-clad desk, guiding my nimble penacross the pages of the note-book. It introduced me to a new world--aworld in which love and learning, sweet intimacy and crustedarchaeology, were mingled into the oddest, most whimsical, and mostdelicious confection that the mind of man can conceive. Hitherto, theserecondite histories had been far beyond my ken. Of the wonderfulheretic, Amenhotep the Fourth, I had barely heard--at the most he hadbeen a mere name; the Hittites a mythical race of undetermined habitat;while cuneiform tablets had presented themselves to my mind merely as anuncouth kind of fossil biscuit suited to the digestion of a pre-historicostrich.

  Now all this was changed. As we sat with our chairs creaking togetherand she whispered the story of those stirring times into my receptiveear--talking is strictly forbidden in the reading-room--the disjointedfragments arranged themselves into a romance of supreme fascination.Egyptian, Babylonian, Aramaean, Hittite, Memphis, Babylon, Hamath,Megiddo--I swallowed them all thankfully, wrote them down and asked formore. Only once did I disgrace myself. An elderly clergyman of asceticand acidulous aspect had passed us with a glance of evident disapproval,clearly setting us down as intruding philanderers; and when Icontrasted the parson's probable conception of the whisperedcommunications that were being poured into my ear so tenderly andconfidentially with the dry reality, I chuckled aloud. But my fairtask-mistress only paused, with her finger on the page, smilingly torebuke me, and then went on with the dictation. She was certainly aTartar for work.

  It was a proud moment for me when, in response to my interrogative"Yes?" my companion said "That is all" and closed the book. We hadextracted the pith and marrow of six considerable volumes in two hoursand a half.

  "You have been better than your word," she said. "It would have taken metwo full days of really hard work to make the notes that you havewritten down since we commenced. I don't know how to thank you."

  "There's no need to. I've enjoyed myself and polished up my shorthand.What is the next thing? We shall want some books for to-morrow, shan'twe?"

  "Yes. I have made out a list, so if you will come with me to thecatalogue desk I will look out the numbers and ask you to write thetickets."

  The selection of a fresh batch of authorities occupied us for anotherquarter of an hour, and then, having handed in the volumes that we hadsqueezed dry, we took our way out of the reading-room.

  "Which way shall we go?" she asked as we passed out of the gate, wherestood a massive policeman, like the guardian angel at the gate ofParadise (only, thank Heaven! he bore no flaming sword forbiddingreentry).

  "We are going," I replied, "to Museum Street, where is a milkshop inwhich one can get an excellent cup of tea."

  She looked as if she would have demurred, but eventually followedobediently, and we were soon seated side by side at a littlemarble-topped table, retracing the ground that we had covered in theafternoon's work and discussing various points of interest over a jointteapot.

  "Have you been doing this sort of work long?" I asked as she handed memy second cup of tea.

  "Professionally," she answered, "only about two years; since we broke upour home, in fact. But long before that I used to come to the Museumwith my Uncle John--the one who disappeared, you know, in thatdreadfully mysterious way--and help him to look up references. We werequite good friends, he and I."

  "I suppose he was a very learned man?" I suggested.

  "Yes, in a certain way; in the way of the better-class collector he wasvery learned indeed. He knew the contents of every museum in the world,in so far as they were connected with Egyptian antiquities, and hadstudied them specimen by specimen. Consequently, as Egyptology islargely a museum science, he was a learned Egyptologist. But his realinterest was in things rather than events. Of course, he knew a greatdeal--a very great deal--about Egyptian history, but still he was,before all, a collector."

  "And what will happen to his collection if he is really dead?"

  "The greater part of it goes to the British Museum by his will, and theremainder he has left to his solicitor, Mr. Jellicoe."

  "To Mr. Jellicoe! Why, what will Mr. Jelli
coe do with Egyptianantiquities?"

  "Oh, he is an Egyptologist, too, and quite an enthusiast. He has areally fine collection of scarabs and other small objects such as it ispossible to keep in a private house. I have always thought that it washis enthusiasm for everything Egyptian that brought him and my uncletogether on terms of such intimacy; though I believe he is an excellentlawyer, and he is certainly a very discreet, cautious man."

  "Is he? I shouldn't have thought so, judging by your uncle's will."

  "Oh, but that was not Mr. Jellicoe's fault. He assures us that heentreated my uncle to let him draw up a fresh document with morereasonable provisions. But he says Uncle John was immovable; and hereally _was_ a rather obstinate man. Mr. Jellicoe repudiates anyresponsibility in the matter. He washes his hands of the whole affair,and says that it is the will of a lunatic. And so it is. I was glancingthrough it only a night or two ago, and really I cannot conceive how asane man could have written such nonsense."

  "You have a copy, then?" I asked eagerly, remembering Thorndyke'sparting instructions.

  "Yes. Would you like to see it? I know my father has told you about it,and it is worth reading as a curiosity of perverseness."

  "I should very much like to show it to my friend, Doctor Thorndyke," Ireplied. "He said that he would be interested to read it and learn theexact provisions; and it might be well to let him, and hear what he hasto say about it."

  "I see no objection," she rejoined; "but you know what my father is:his horror, I mean, of what he calls 'cadging for advice gratis.'"

  "Oh, but he need have no scruples on that score. Doctor Thorndyke wantsto see the will because the case interests him. He is an enthusiast, youknow, and he put the request as a personal favour to himself."

  "That is very nice and delicate of him, and I will explain the positionto my father. If he is willing for Doctor Thorndyke to see the copy, Iwill send or bring it over this evening. Have we finished?"

  I regretfully admitted that we had, and, when I had paid the modestreckoning, we sallied forth, turning back with one accord into GreatRussell Street to avoid the noise and bustle of the larger thoroughfare.

  "What sort of man was your uncle?" I asked presently, as we walked alongthe quiet, dignified street. And then I added hastily: "I hope you don'tthink me inquisitive, but, to my mind, he presents himself as a kind ofmysterious abstraction; the unknown quantity of a legal problem."

  "My Uncle John," she answered reflectively, "was a very peculiar man,rather obstinate, very self-willed, what people call 'masterful,' anddecidedly wrong-headed and unreasonable."

  "That is certainly the impression that the terms of his will convey," Isaid.

  "Yes; and not the will only. There was the absurd allowance that he mademy father. That was a ridiculous arrangement, and very unfair, too. Heought to have divided up the property as my grandfather intended. Andyet he was by no means ungenerous, only he would have his own way, andhis own way was very commonly the wrong way.

  "I remember," she continued, after a short pause, "a very odd instanceof his wrong-headedness and obstinacy. It was a small matter, but verytypical of him. He had in his collection a beautiful little ring of theeighteenth dynasty. It was said to have belonged to Queen Ti, the motherof our friend Amenhotep the Fourth; but I don't think that could havebeen so, because the device on it was the Eye of Osiris, and Ti, as youknow, was an Aten-worshipper. However, it was a very charming ring, andUncle John, who had a queer sort of devotion to the mystical Eye ofOsiris, commissioned a very clever goldsmith to make two exact copies ofit, one for himself and one for me. The goldsmith naturally wanted totake the measurements of our fingers, but this Uncle John would not hearof; the rings were to be exact copies, and an exact copy must be thesame size as the original. You can imagine the result; my ring was soloose that I couldn't keep it on my finger, and Uncle John's was sotight that, though he did manage to get it on, he was never able to getit off again. And it was only the circumstance that his left hand wasdecidedly smaller than his right that made it possible for him to wearit at all."

  "So you never wore your copy?"

  "No. I wanted to have it altered to make it fit, but he objectedstrongly; so I put it away, and have it in a box still."

  "He must have been an extraordinarily pig-headed old fellow," Iremarked.

  "Yes; he was very tenacious. He annoyed my father a good deal, too, bymaking unnecessary alterations in the house in Queen Square when hefitted up his museum. We have a certain sentiment with regard to thathouse. Our people have lived in it ever since it was built, when thesquare was first laid out in the reign of Queen Anne, after whom thesquare was named. It is a dear old house. Would you like to see it? Weare quite near it now."

  I assented eagerly. If it had been a coal-shed or a fried-fish shop Iwould still have visited it with pleasure, for the sake of prolongingour walk; but I was also really interested in this old house as a partof the background of the mystery of the vanished John Bellingham.

  We crossed into Cosmo Place, with its quaint row of the, now rare,cannon-shaped iron posts, and passing through stood for a few momentslooking into the peaceful, stately old square. A party of boys disportedthemselves noisily on the range of stone posts that form a bodyguardround the ancient lamp-surmounted pump, but otherwise the place waswrapped in dignified repose suited to its age and station. And verypleasant it looked on this summer afternoon, with the sunlight gildingthe foliage of its wide-spreading plane trees and lighting up thewarm-toned brick of the house-fronts. We walked slowly down the shadywest side, near the middle of which my companion halted.

  "This is the house," she said. "It looks gloomy and forsaken now; but itmust have been a delightful house in the days when my ancestors couldlook out of the windows through the open end of the square across thefields and meadows to the heights of Hampstead and Highgate."

  She stood at the edge of the pavement looking up with a curiouswistfulness at the old house; a very pathetic figure, I thought, withher handsome face and proud carriage, her threadbare dress and shabbygloves, standing at the threshold of the home that had been her family'sfor generations, that should now have been hers, and that was shortly topass away into the hands of strangers.

  I, too, looked up at it with a strange interest, impressed by somethinggloomy and forbidding in its aspect. The windows were shuttered frombasement to attic, and no sign of life was visible. Silent, neglected,desolate, it breathed an air of tragedy. It seemed to mourn in sackclothand ashes for its lost master. The massive door within the splendidcarven portico was crusted with grime, and seemed to have passed out ofuse as completely as the ancient lamp-irons or the rusted extinguisherswherein the footmen were wont to quench their torches when someBellingham dame was borne up the steps in her gilded chair, in the daysof good Queen Anne.

  It was in a somewhat sobered frame of mind that we presently turned awayand started homeward by way of Great Ormond Street. My companion wasdeeply thoughtful, relapsing for a while into that sombreness of mannerthat had so impressed me when I first met her. Nor was I without acertain sympathetic pensiveness; as if, from the great, silent house,the spirit of the vanished man had issued forth to bear us company.

  But still it was a delightful walk, and I was sorry when at last wearrived at the entrance to Nevill's Court, and Miss Bellingham haltedand held out her hand.

  "Good-bye," she said; "and many, many thanks for your invaluable help.Shall I take the bag?"

  "If you want it. But I must take out the note-books."

  "Why must you take them?" she asked.

  "Why, haven't I got to copy the notes out into longhand?"

  An expression of utter consternation spread over her face; in fact, shewas so completely taken aback that she forgot to release my hand.

  "Heavens!" she exclaimed. "How idiotic of me! But it is impossible,Doctor Berkeley! It will take you hours!"

  "It is perfectly possible, and it is going to be done; otherwise thenotes would be useless. Do you want the bag?"


  "No, of course not. But I am positively appalled. Hadn't you better giveup the idea?"

  "And is this the end of our collaboration?" I exclaimed tragically,giving her hand a final squeeze (whereby she became suddenly aware ofits position, and withdrew it rather hastily). "Would you throw away awhole afternoon's work? I won't, certainly; so, good-bye untilto-morrow. I shall turn up in the reading-room as early as I can. Youhad better take the tickets. Oh, and you won't forget about the copy ofthe will for Doctor Thorndyke, will you?"

  "No; if my father agrees, you shall have it this evening."

  She took the tickets from me, and, thanking me yet again, retired intothe court.