Sylvia listened to my narration with a rapt attention that greatly flattered my vanity and made me feel like a very Othello, and when I had finished, she regarded me for a while silently and with an air of speculation. “It’s a queer affair,” she said at length, “and there is a smack of mystery and romance about it that is rather refreshing in these commonplace days. But I don’t like it. Adventure is all very well, but there seems to have been a deliberate attempt to make away with you; unless you think it may have been a piece of silly horse-play that went farther than it was meant to.”
“That is quite possible,” I replied untruthfully—for I didn’t think anything of the sort, and only made this evasive answer to avoid raising other and more delicate issues.
“I hope that is the explanation,” said Sylvia, “though it sounds rather a lame one. You would know if you had an enemy who might wish to get rid of you. I suppose you don’t know of any such person?”
It was a rather awkward question, I didn’t want to tell an untruth, but, on the other hand, I knew that Thorndyke would not wish to have my affairs discussed while his investigations were in progress; so I “hedged” once more, replying, quite truthfully, that I was not acquainted with anyone who bore me the slightest ill-will.
My adventures done with, the talk drifted into other channels and presently came round to the little crucifix that had been the occasion of Sylvia’s disagreeable experience in the lane. In spite of my confusion, I had noticed, on first entering the room, that the old lady was wearing suspended from her neck, a small enamelled crucifix, and had instantly identified it and wondered not a little that she should be thus disporting herself in borrowed ornaments; but when Sylvia had arrived, behold, the original crucifix was hanging on its chain from her neck. From time to time during my recital my eyes had wandered from one to the other seeking some difference or variation but finding none, and at length my inquisitive glances caught the younger lady’s attention. “I can see. Dr. Jardine,” said she, “that you are eaten up with curiosity about the crucifix that my Aunt is wearing. Now confess. Aren’t you?”
“I am,” I admitted. “When I first came in I naturally thought it was yours. Is it a copy?”
“Certainly not,” said Miss Vyne, the elder. “They are duplicates.”
Sylvia laughed. “You’d better not talk about copies,” said she. “My aunt has only acquired her treasure lately, and she is as proud of it as a peacock; aren’t you, dear?”
“The sensations of a peacock,” replied Miss Vyne, “are unknown to me. I am very gratified at possessing the ornament.”
“Gratified indeed!” said Sylvia. “I consider such vanity most unsuitable to a person of your age. But they are very charming, and there is quite a little story attached to them. My father and a cousin of his—”
“By marriage,” interposed Miss Vyne.
“You needn’t insist on that,” said Sylvia, “as if poor old Vitalia were a person to be ashamed of. Well, my father and this cousin were at a Jesuit school in Belgium—at Louvain, in fact—and among the teachers in the school was an Italian Jesuit named Giglioli. Now the respected Giggley—”
“—oli,” interposed Miss Vyne in a severe voice.
“—oli,” continued Sylvia, “had formerly been a goldsmith; and the Father Superior, with that keen eye to the main chance which you may have noticed among professed religious, furnished him with a little workshop and employed him in making monstrances, thuribles and church plate in general. It was he who made these two crucifixes; and, with the Father Superior’s consent, he gave one to my father and the other to the cousin as parting gifts on their leaving school. As the boys were inseparable friends, the two crucifixes were made absolute duplicates of one another, with the single exception that each had the owner’s name engraved on the back. When my poor father died his crucifix became mine, and a short time ago, his cousin—who is now getting an old man—took a fancy that he would like the two crucifixes to be together once more and gave his to my aunt. So here they are, after all these years, under one roof again.”
As she finished speaking, she detached the crucifix from her neck and, having given it to me to examine, proceeded to remove its fellow from the neck of the elder lady—who not only submitted quite passively but seemed to be unaware of the transaction—and handed that to me also.
I laid them side by side in my palm and compared them, but could not detect the slightest difference between them. They were complete duplicates. Each was a Latin cross with trefoiled extremities, wrought from a single piece of gold and enriched with champlevé enamel. The body of the cross was filled with a ground of deep, translucent blue, from which the figure stood out in rather low relief, and the space between each of the trefoils was occupied by a single Greek letter—Iota and Chi at the top and bottom respectively, and at the ends of the horizontal arm Alpha and Omega. On turning them over, I saw that the back of each bore an engraved inscription carried across the horizontal arm, that on Sylvia’s reading: “A. M. ROBERTUS, D.G.,” while that on the other read: “A. M. VITALIS, D.G.”
“They are very charming little things,” I said, as I returned them to Sylvia; “and it was a pretty idea of the old Jesuit to make them both alike for the two friends. I suppose he didn’t make any more of them for his other pupils?”
“What makes you ask that?” demanded Sylvia.
“I am thinking of that man in the lane. He must have had some reason for claiming the crucifix as his, one would think; and as these are quite unlike any ordinary commercial jewellery, the suggestion is that the worthy Giglioli was tempted to repeat his successes. What do you think?”
“I think,” said Miss Vyne, “that the suggestion is inadmissable. Father Giglioli was an artist, and an artist does not repeat himself.”
“I am inclined to agree with my aunt,” said Sylvia. “An artist does not care to repeat a design, excepting for a definite purpose, as in the case of these duplicates; especially when the thing designed is intended as a gift.”
To this I gave a somewhat qualified assent, though I found the argument far from convincing; and, as I had made a very long visitation, especially for a first call, I now rose to depart. “I hope I may be allowed to come and see you again,” I ventured to say as Miss Vyne raised a sort of semaphore arm to my extended hand. “I see no reason why you should not,” she replied judicially. “You seem to be a well-disposed young man, though indiscreet. Good-afternoon.”
I bowed deferentially and then, to my gratification, was escorted as far as the garden gate by Sylvia; who evidently wished to gather my impressions of her relative, for, as she let me out, she asked with a mischievous smile: “What do you think of my aunt, Dr. Jardine?”
“She is rather a terrifying old lady,” I replied.
Sylvia giggled delightedly. “She does look an awful old griffin, doesn’t she? But it’s all nonsense, you know. She is really a dear old thing, and as soft as butter.”
“Well,” I said, “she conceals the fact most perfectly.”
“She does. She is a most complete impostor. I’ll tell you a secret, Dr. Jardine,” Sylvia added in a mysterious whisper, as we shook hands over the gate; “she trades on her nose. I’ve told her so. Her nose is her fortune, and she plays it for all it’s worth. Goodbye—or rather, au revoir! for you’ve promised to come and see us again.”
With a bright little nod she turned and ran up the garden path, still chuckling softly at her joke; and I wended homewards, very well pleased with the circumstances of my visit, despite the soul-shaking incidents with which it had opened.
* * *
XIII — A MYSTERIOUS STRANGER
ON the following morning I betook myself to the hospital intending to call later in the day at Dr. Thorndyke’s chambers; but that visit turned out to be unnecessary, for, as I ran my eye over the names on the attendance board in the entrance hall, I saw that Thorndyke was in the building, although it was not the day on which he lectured. I found him, as I had expected, in t
he museum and was greeted with a hearty grip of the hand and a welcome, the warmth of which gratified me exceedingly. “Well, Jardine,” he said, “you’ve given us all a pretty fine shake up. I have never been more relieved in my life than I was when my man Polton gave me your note. But you seem to have had another fairly close shave. What a fellow you are, to be sure! You seem to be as tenacious of life as the proverbial cat.”
“So that little archbishop is your man Polton, is he?”
“Yes; and a most remarkable man, Jardine, and simply invaluable to me, though he ought to be in a very different position. But I think he is quite happy with me—especially now that he has got your watch to experiment on. You will see that watch again some day, when he has rated it to half a second. And meanwhile let us go into the curator’s room and reconstitute your adventures.”
The curator’s room was empty at the moment; empty, that is to say, so far as human denizens were concerned. Otherwise it was decidedly full; the usual wilderness of glass jars, sepulchral slate tanks, bones in all stages of preparation and unfinished specimens, being supplemented by that all-pervading, unforgettable odour peculiar to curator’s rooms, compounded of alcohol and mortality, and suggesting a necropolis for deceased dipsomaniacs. Thorndyke seated himself on a well-polished stool by the work-bench, and, motioning me to another, bade me speak on. Which I did in exhaustive detail; giving him a minute history of my experiences from the time of my parting from Sylvia to the present moment, not omitting my encounter with Mrs. Samway and the clerical gentleman in the train.
He listened to my narrative in his usual silent, attentive fashion, making no comments and asking no questions until I had finished; when he cross-examined me on one or two points of detail. “With regard to Mrs. Samway,” he asked, “did you gather that she was crossing by the Boulogne boat?”
“I inferred that she was, but she said nothing on the subject.”
He nodded and then asked; “Do I understand that you never saw your assailant at all?”
“I never got the slightest glimpse of him; in fact I could not say whether the person who attacked me was a man or a woman excepting that the obvious strength and the method of attack suggest a man.”
To this he made no reply, but sat a while absorbed in thought. It was evident that he was deeply interested in the affair, not only on my account but by reason of the curious problems that it offered for solution. Indeed, his next remark was to this effect. “It is a most singular case, Jardine,” he said. “So much of it is perfectly clear, and yet so much more is unfathomable mystery. But just now, the speculative interest is overshadowed by the personal. I am rather doubtful as to what we ought to do. It almost looks as if you ought not to be at large.”
“I hope, sir, you don’t suggest shutting me up,” I exclaimed with a grin.
“That was in my mind,” he answered. “You are evidently in considerable danger, and you are not as cautious as you ought to be.”
“I shall be mighty cautious after this experience,” I rejoined; “and you have yourself implied that I have nine lives.”
“Even so,” he retorted, “you have played away a third of them pretty rapidly. If you are not more careful of the other six, I shall have to put you somewhere out of harm’s way. Do, for goodness sake, Jardine, keep away from unpopulated places and see that no stranger gets near enough to have you at a disadvantage.”
I promised him to keep a constant watch for suspicious strangers and to avoid all solitary neighbourhoods and ill-lighted thoroughfares, and shortly after this we separated to go our respective ways, he back to the museum and I to the surgical wards.
For some time after this, the record of my daily life furnishes nothing but a chronicle of small beer. I had resumed pretty regular attendance at the hospital, setting forth from my lodgings in the morning and returning thither as the late afternoon merged into evening; taking the necessary exercise in the form of the long walk to and from the hospital, and keeping close indoors at night. It began to look as though my adventures were at an end and life were settling down to the old familiar jog trot.
And yet the beer was not quite so small as it looked. Coming events cast their shadows before them, but often enough those shadows wear a shape ill-defined and vague, and so creep on unnoticed. Thus it was in these days of apparent inaction, though even then there were certain little happenings at which I looked askance. Such an episode occurred within a few days of my return, and gave me considerable food for thought. I had climbed on to the yellow ‘bus in the Tottenham Court Road and was seated on the top, smoking my pipe, when, as we passed up the Hampstead Road, I noticed a woman looking into the window of Mr. Robinson, the artist’s-colourman. Something familiar or distinctive in the pose of the figure made me glance a second time; and then I think my eyes must have grown more and more round with astonishment as the ‘bus gradually drew me out of range. For the woman was undoubtedly Mrs. Samway.
It was really a most surprising affair. This good lady seemed to be ubiquitous; to fly hither and thither and drop from the clouds as if she were the possessor of a magic carpet. Apparently she had not gone to Boulogne after all; or if she had, her stay on the Continent must have been uncommonly short. But if she had not crossed on the boat, what was she doing in Folkestone? It was all very well to say that she had as much right to be in Folkestone as I had. That was true enough, but it was a lame conclusion and no explanation at all.
It was my custom, as I have said, to walk from my lodgings to the hospital, a distance of some five miles; but this was practicable only in fine weather. On wet days I took the tram from the “Duke of St. Alban’s”; and beguiled the slow journey by reading one of my text-books and observing the manners and customs of my fellow-passengers. Such a day was the one that followed the re-appearance of Mrs. Samway. A persistent drizzle put my morning walk out of the question and sent me reluctant but resigned to seek the shelter of the tram, where having settled myself with a volume of Gould’s “Surgical Diagnosis,” I began to read to the accompaniment of the monotonous rhythm of the horses’ hoofs and the sleepy jingle of their bells. From time to time I looked up from my book to take a glance at the other occupants of the steamy interior, and on each occasion that I did so, I caught the eye of my opposite neighbour roving over my person as if taking an inventory of my apparel. Whenever he caught my eye, he immediately looked away; but the next time I glanced up I was sure to find him once more engaged in a leisurely examination of me.
There was nothing remarkable in this. People who sit opposite in a public vehicle unconsciously regard one another, as I was doing myself; but when I had met my neighbour’s eye a dozen times or more, I began to grow annoyed at his persistent inspection; and finally, shutting up my book, proceeded to retaliate in kind.
This seemed to embarrass him considerably. Avoiding my steady gaze, his eyes flitted to and fro, passing restlessly from one part of the vehicle to another; and then it was that my medical eye noted a fact that gave an intrinsic interest to the inspection. The man had what is called a nystagmus; that is, a peculiar oscillatory movement of the eyeball. As his eyes passed quickly from object to object, they did not both come to rest instantaneously, but the right eye stopped with a sort of vertical stagger as if the bearings were loose. The condition is not a very common one, and the one-sided variety is decidedly rare. It is usually associated with some defect of vision or habitual strain of the eye-muscles, as in miners’ nystagmus; whence my discovery naturally led to a further survey and speculation as to the cause of the condition in the present case.
The man was obviously not a miner. His hands—with a cigarette stain, as I noticed, on the left middle finger—were much too delicate, and he had not in any way the appearance of a labourer. Then the spasm must be due to some defect of eyesight. Yet he was not near-sighted, for, as we passed a church at some distance, I saw him glance out through the doorway at the clock and compare it with his watch; and again, I noticed that he took out his watch with his left hand
. Then perhaps he had a blind eye or unequal vision in the two eyes; this seemed the most likely explanation; and I had hardly proposed it to myself when the chance was given to me to verify it. Confused by my persistent examination of him, my unwilling patient suddenly produced a newspaper from his pocket and, clapping a pair of pince-nez on his nose, began to read. Those pince-nez gave me the required information, for I could see that one glass was strongly convex while the other was nearly plane.
The question of my friend’s eyesight being disposed of, I began to debate the significance of that stain of the left middle finger. Was he left-handed? It did not follow, though it seemed likely; and then I found myself noting the manner in which he hold his paper, until, becoming suddenly conscious of the absurdity of the whole affair, I impatiently picked up my book and reverted to the diagnosis of renal calculus. I was becoming, I reflected disparagingly, as inquisitive as Thorndyke himself; from whom I seemed to have caught some infection that impelled me thus to concern myself with the trifling peculiarities of total strangers.
The trivial incident would probably have faded from my recollection but for another, equally trivial, which occurred a day or two later. I was returning home by way of Tottenham Court Road and had nearly reached the crossing at the north end when I suddenly remembered that I had come to the last of my note-books. The shop at which I obtained them was in Gower Street, hard by, and as the thought of the books occurred to me, I turned abruptly and, running across the road, strode quickly down a by-street that led to the shop.
As I came out into Gower Street I noticed a small, but rapidly augmenting crowd on the pavement, and, elbowing my way through, found at its centre a man lying on the ground, writhing in the convulsions of an epileptic fit. I proceeded to ward off the well-meant attentions of the usual excited bystanders, who were pulling open his hands and trying to sit him up, and had thrust the corner of a folded newspaper between his teeth to prevent him from biting his tongue when a constable arrived on the scene; upon which, as the officer bore on his sleeve the badge of the St. John’s Ambulance Society, I gave him a few directions and began to back out of the crowd.
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