'The beds in question have been laid out in a small artificial lake fed by a tiny streamlet which forms one of the numerous tributaries of the River Cray. Its depth is greater than usual in the watercress-beds, otherwise the gruesome relics could never have been concealed beneath its surface, and the flow of water through it, though continuous, is slow. The tributary streamlet meanders through a succession of pasture meadows, in one of which the beds themselves are situated, and here throughout most of the year the fleecy victims of the human carnivore carry on the industry of converting grass into mutton. Now it happened some years ago that the sheep frequenting these pastures became affected with the disease known as "liver-rot"; and here we must make a short digression into the domain of pathology.
'"Liver-rot" is a disease of quite romantic antecedents. Its cause is a small flat worm—the liver-fluke—which infests the liver and bile-ducts of the affected sheep.
'Now how does the worm get into the sheep's liver? That is where the romance comes in. Let us see.
'The cycle of transformation begins with the deposit of the eggs of the fluke in some shallow stream or ditch running through pasture lands. Now each egg has a sort of lid, which presently opens and lets out a minute, hairy creature who swims away in search of a particular kind of water-snail—the kind called by naturalists Limnosa truncatula. If he finds a snail, he bores his way into its flesh and soon begins to grow and wax fat. Then he brings forth a family—of tiny worms quite unlike himself, little creatures called rediae, which soon give birth to families of young rediae. So they go on for several generations, but at last there comes a generation of rediae which, instead of giving birth to fresh rediae, produce families of totally different offspring; big-headed, long-tailed creatures like miniature tadpoles, called by the learned cercariae. The cercariae soon wriggle their way out of the body of the snail, and then complications arise: for it is the habit of this particular snail to leave the water occasionally and take a stroll in the fields. Thus the cercariae, escaping from the snail, find themselves on the grass, whereupon they promptly drop their tails and stick themselves to the grass-blades. Then comes the unsuspecting sheep to take his frugal meal, and, cropping the grass, swallows it, cercariae and all. But the latter, when they find themselves in the sheep's stomach, make their way straight to the bile-ducts, up which they travel to the liver. Here, in a few weeks, they grow up into full-blown flukes and begin the important business of producing eggs.
'Such is the pathological romance of the "liver-rot"; and now what is its connection with this mysterious discovery? It is this. After the outbreak of "liver-rot" above referred to, the ground landlord, a Mr. John Bellingham, instructed his solicitor to insert a clause in the lease of the beds directing that the latter should be periodically cleared and examined by an expert to make sure that they were free from the noxious water-snails. The last lease expired about two years ago, and since then the beds have been out of cultivation; but, for the safety of the adjacent pastures, it was considered necessary to make the customary periodical inspection, and it was in the course of cleaning the beds for this purpose that r the present discovery was made.
'The operation began two days ago. A gang of three men proceeded systematically to grub up the plants and collect the multitudes of water-snails that they might be examined by the expert to see if any obnoxious species were present. They had cleared nearly half of the beds when, yesterday afternoon, one of the men working in the deepest part came upon some bones, the appearance of which excited his suspicion. Thereupon he called his mates, and they carefully picked away the plants piece-meal, a process that soon laid bare an unmistakable human hand lying on the mud amongst the roots. Fortunately they had the wisdom not to disturb the remains, but at once sent off a message to the police. Very soon, an inspector and a sergeant, accompanied by the divisional surgeon, arrived on the scene, and were able to view the remains lying as they had been found. And now another very strange fact came to light; for it was seen that the hand—a left one—lying on the mud was minus its third finger. This is regarded by the police as a very important fact as bearing on the question of identification, seeing that the number of persons having the third finger of the left hand missing must be quite small. After a thorough examination on the spot, the bones were carefully collected and conveyed to the mortuary, where they now lie awaiting further inquiries.
'The divisional surgeon, Dr. Brandon, in an interview with our representative, made the following statements:
'"The bones are those of the left arm of a middle-aged or elderly man about five feet eight inches in height. All the bones of the arm are present, including the scapula, or shoulder-blade, and the clavicle, or collar-bone, but the three bones of the third finger are missing."
'"Is this a deformity or has the finger been cut off?" our correspondent asked.
'"The finger has been amputated," was the reply. "If it had been absent from birth, the corresponding hand bone, or metacarpal, would have been wanting or deformed, whereas it is present and quite normal."
'"How long have the bones been in the water?" was the next question.
'"More than a year, I should say. They are quite clean; there is not a vestige of the soft structures left."
'"Have you any theory as to how the arm came to be deposited where it was found?"
'"I should rather not answer that question," was the guarded response.
'"One more question," our correspondent urged. "The ground landlord, Mr. John Bellingham; is he not the gentleman who disappeared so mysteriously some time ago?"
'"So I understand," Dr. Brandon replied.
'"Can you tell me if Mr. Bellingham had lost the third finger of his left hand?"
'"I cannot say," said Dr. Brandon; and he added with a smile, "you had better ask the police."
'That is how the matter stands at present. But we understand that the police are making active inquiries for any missing man who has lost the third finger of his left hand, and if any of our readers know of such a person, they are earnestly requested to communicate at once, either with us or with the authorities.
'Also we believe that a systematic search is to be made for further remains.'
I laid the newspaper down and fell into a train of reflection. It was certainly a most mysterious affair. The thought that had evidently come to the reporter's mind stole naturally into mine. Could these remains be those of John Bellingham? It was obviously possible, though I could not but see that the fact of the bones having been found on his land, while it undoubtedly furnished the suggestion, did not in any way add to its probability. The connection was accidental and in nowise relevant.
Then, too, there was the missing finger. No reference to any such deformity had been made in the original report of the disappearance, though it could hardly have been overlooked. I should be seeing Thorndyke in the course of the next few days, and, undoubtedly, if the discovery had any bearing upon the disappearance of John Bellingham, I should hear of it. With such a reflection I rose from the table, and, adopting the advice contained in the spurious Johnsonian quotation, proceeded to 'take a walk in Fleet Street' before settling down for the evening.
VI. Sidelights
The association of coal with potatoes is one upon which I have frequently speculated, without arriving at any more satisfactory explanation than that both products are of the earth, earthy. Of the connection itself Barnard's practice furnished several instances besides Mrs. Jablett's establishment in Fleur-de-Lys Court, one of which was a dark and mysterious cavern a foot below the level of the street, that burrowed under an ancient house on the west side of Fetter Lane—a crinkly, timber house of the three-decker type that leaned back drunkenly 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 in the morning, I perceived in the shadows of the cavern no less a person than Miss Oman. She saw me at the same moment, and beckoned peremptorily with a hand that held a large Spanish onion.
I approached with a deferential smile.
'What a magnificent onion, Miss Oman! and how generous of you to offer it 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 of nonsense. A grown man and a member of a serious profession, too! You ought 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 consult the bottle-boy?'
'Certainly not, Miss Oman. So you find the lady doctor no use, after all?'
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 not ill,' I said with a sudden anxiety that elicited a sardonic smile from Miss Oman.
'No,' was the reply, 'she is not ill, but she has cut her hand rather badly. It's her right hand too, and she can't afford to lose the use of it, not being a great, hulky, lazy, lolloping man. So you had better go and put some stuff on it.'
With this advice, Miss Oman whisked to the right-about and vanished into the depths of the cavern like the witch of Wokey, while I hurried on to the surgery to provide myself with the necessary instruments and materials, and thence proceeded to Nevill's Court.
Miss Oman's juvenile maidservant, who opened the door to me, stated the existing conditions with epigrammatic conciseness.
'Mr. Bellingham is hout, sir; but Miss Bellingham is hin.'
Having thus delivered herself she retreated towards the kitchen and I ascended the stairs, at the head of which I found Miss Bellingham awaiting me with her right hand encased in what looked like a white boxing-glove.
'I'm glad you have come,' she said. 'Phyllis—Miss Oman, you know—has kindly bound up my hand, but I should like you to see that it is all right.'
We went into the sitting-room, where I laid out my paraphernalia on the table while I inquired into the particulars of the accident.
'It is most unfortunate that it should have happened just now,' she said, 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 lady who is writing an historical book has commissioned me to collect all the literature relating to the Tell el Amarna letters—the cuneiform tablets, 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 to send in completed notes not later than this day week, and it will be quite impossible. I am dreadfully disappointed.'
By this time I had unwound the voluminous wrappings and exposed the injury—a deep gash in the palm that must have narrowly missed a good-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 write with it?'
I shook my head.
'No, Miss Bellingham. I shall have to put it on a splint. We can't run any risks with a deep wound like this.'
'Then I shall have to give up the commission, and I don't know how my client will get the work done in the time. You see, I am pretty well up in the literature of Ancient Egypt; in fact, I was to receive special payment on that account. And it would have been such an interesting task, too. However, it can't be helped.'
I proceeded methodically with the application of the dressings, and meanwhile reflected. It was evident that she was deeply disappointed. Loss of work meant loss of money, and it needed but a glance at her rusty black dress to see that there was little margin for that. Possibly, too, there was some special need to be met. Her manner seemed almost to imply that there was. And at this point I had a brilliant idea.
'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 a proposition, 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 writing shorthand. I am not a lightning reporter, you understand, but I can take matter down from dictation at quite respectable speed.'
'Yes.'
'Well, I have several hours free every day—usually the whole afternoon up to six or half-past—and it occurs to me that if you were to go to the Museum in the mornings you could get out your book, look up passages (you could do that without using your right hand), and put in bookmarks. Then I could come along in the afternoon and you could read out the selected passages to me, and I could take them down in shorthand. We should get through as much in a couple of hours as you could in a day using long-hand.'
'Oh, but how kind of you, Dr. Berkeley!' she exclaimed. 'How very kind! Of course, I couldn't think of taking up all your leisure in that way; but I do appreciate your kindness very much.'
I was rather chapfallen at this very definite refusal, but persisted feebly:
'I wish you would. It may seem rather a cheek for a comparative stranger like me to make such a proposal to a lady: but if you'd been a man—in those special circumstances—I should have made it all the same, and you would 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 such earnestness that we both laughed. And at this moment Mr. Bellingham entered the room carrying several large brand-new books in a strap.
'Well, I'm sure!' he exclaimed genially; 'here are pretty goings on. Doctor and patient giggling like a pair of schoolgirls! What's the joke?'
He thumped his parcel of books down on the table and listened smilingly while my unconscious witticism was expounded.
'The doctor's quite right,' he said. 'You'll do as you are, chick; but the Lord knows what sort of man you would make. You take his advice and let well alone.'
Finding him in this genial frame of mind, I ventured to explain my proposition to him and to enlist his support. He considered it with attentive 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,' she answered.
'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 an obligation to the Doctor, do we?'
'Oh, it isn't that!' she exclaimed hastily.
'Then take him at his word. He means it. It is a kind action and he'll like doing it, I'm sure. That's all right, Doctor; she accepts, don't you, chick?'
'Yes, if you say so, I do; and most thankfully.'
She accompanied the acceptance with a gracious smile that was in itself a large repayment on account, and when we had made the necessary arrangements, I hurried away in a state of the most perfect satisfaction to 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 the garden with the shabby handbag, of which I relieved her, and we set forth together, watched jealously by Miss Oman, who had accompanied her to the gate.
As I walked up the court with this wonderful maid by my side I could hardly believe in my good fortune. By her presence and my own resulting happiness the mean surroundings became glorified and the commonest objects transfigured into things of beauty. What a delightful thoroughfare, for instance, was Fetter Lane, with its quaint char
m and mediaeval grace! I snuffed the cabbage-laden atmosphere and seemed to breathe the scent of the asphodel. Holborn was even as the Elysian Fields; the omnibus that bore us westward was a chariot of glory; and the people who swarmed verminously on the pavements bore the semblance of the children of light.
Love is a foolish thing judged by workaday standards, and the thoughts and actions of lovers foolish beyond measure. But the workaday standard is the wrong one, after all; for the utilitarian mind does but busy itself with the trivial and transitory interests of life, behind which looms 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 a summer night than in all the wisdom of Solomon (who, by the way, was not without his little experiences of the tender passion).
The janitor in the little glass box by the entrance to the library inspected 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 received a talismanic disc in exchange) we entered the enormous rotunda of the reading-room.
I have often thought that, if some lethal vapour of highly preservative properties—such as formaldehyde, for instance—could be shed into the atmosphere of this apartment, the entire and complete collection of books and book-worms would be well worth preserving, for the enlightenment of posterity, as a sort of anthropological appendix to the main collection of the Museum. For, surely, nowhere else in the world are so many strange and abnormal human beings gathered together in one place. And a curious question that must have occurred to many observers is: Whence do these singular creatures come, and whither do they go when the very distinct-faced clock (adjusted to literary eyesight) proclaims closing time? The tragic-faced gentleman, for instance, with the corkscrew ringlets that bob up and down like spiral springs as he walks? Or the short, elderly gentleman in the black cassock and bowler hat, who shatters your nerves by turning suddenly and revealing himself as a middle-aged woman? Whither do they go? One never sees them elsewhere. Do they steal away at closing time into the depths of the Museum and hide themselves until morning in sarcophagi or mummy cases? Or do they creep through spaces in the book-shelves and spend the night behind the volumes in a congenial atmosphere of leather and antique paper? Who can say? What I do know is that when Ruth Bellingham entered the reading-room she appeared in comparison with these like a creature of another order; even as the head of Antinous, which formerly stood (it has since been moved) amidst the portrait-busts of the Roman Emperors, seemed like the head of a god set in a portrait gallery of illustrious baboons.
Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 1 Page 51