I followed her meekly into the front room, where, in the large bay window, she inspected me critically, her cheeks dimpling with a mischievous smile. “There’s something radically wrong about your eyebrows,” she said, “but, really, you are not in the least the fright that you made out. As to the beard and moustache, I am not sure that I don’t rather like them.”
“I hope you don’t,” I replied, “because, off they come at the first opportunity—unless, of course, you forbid it.”
“Does my opinion of your appearance matter so much then?”
“It matters entirely. I don’t care what I look like to anyone else.”
“Oh! what a fib!” exclaimed Sylvia. “Don’t I remember how very neatly turned out you always were when you used to pass me in the lane before we knew one another?”
“Exactly,” I retorted. “We didn’t know one another then. That makes all the difference in the world—to me, at any rate.”
“Does it?” she said, colouring a little and looking at me thoughtfully. “It’s very—very flattering of you to say so, Dr. Jardine.”
“I hope you don’t mean that as a snub,” I said, rather uneasy at the form of her reply and thinking of my letter.
“A snub!” she exclaimed. “No, I certainly don’t. What did I say?”
“You called me Dr. Jardine. I addressed you in my letter as ‘Sylvia—My dear Sylvia.’”
“And what ought I to have said?” she asked, blushing warmly and casting down her eyes.
“Well, Sylvia, if you liked me as well as I like you, I don’t see why you shouldn’t call me Humphrey. We are quite old friends now.”
“So we are,” she agreed; “and perhaps it would be less formal. So Humphrey it shall be in future, since that is your royal command. But tell me, how did you prevail on Dr. Thorndyke to let you come here? Is there any change in the situation?”
“There’s a change in my situation, and a mighty agreeable change, too. I’m here.”
“Now don’t be silly. How did you persuade Dr. Thorndyke to let you come?”
“Ha—that, my dear Sylvia, is a rather embarrassing question. Shall we change the subject?”
“No, we won’t.” She looked at me suspiciously for a moment and then exclaimed in low, tragical tones: “Humphrey! You don’t mean to tell me that you came away without his knowledge!”
“I’m afraid that is what it amounts to. I saw a loop-hole and I popped through it; and here I am, as I remarked before.”
“But how dreadful of you! Perfectly shocking! And whatever will he say to you when you go back?”
“That is a question that I am not proposing to present vividly to my consciousness until I arrive on the door-step. I’ve broken out of chokee and I’m going to have a good time—to go on having a good time, I should say.”
“Then you consider that you are having a good time now?”
“I don’t consider. I am sure of it. Am I not, at this very moment looking at you? And what more could a man desire?”
She tried to look severe, though the attempt was not strikingly successful, and retorted in an admonishing tone: “You needn’t try to wheedle me with compliments. You are a very wicked person and most indiscreet. But it seems to me that some sort of change has come over you since you retired from the world. Don’t you think I’m right?”
“You’re perfectly right. I’ve improved. That’s what it is. Matured and mellowed, you know, like a bottle of claret that has been left in a cellar and forgotten. Say you think I’ve improved, Sylvia.”
“I won’t,” she replied, and then, changing her mind, she added: “Yes, I will. I’ll say that you are more insinuating than ever, if that will do. And now, as, you are clearly quite incorrigible, I won’t scold you any more, especially as you ‘broke out of chokee’ to come and see me. You shall tell me all about your adventures.”
“I didn’t come here to talk about myself, Sylvia. I came to tell you something—well, about myself, perhaps, but—er—not my adventures you know or—or that sort of thing—but, I have been thinking a good deal, since I have been alone so much—about you, I mean, Sylvia—and—er—Oh! the deuce!”
The latter exclamation was evoked by the warning voice of the gong, evidently announcing tea, and the subsequent appearance of the housemaid; who was certainly not such a goose as she was supposed to be, for she tapped discreetly at the door and waited three full seconds before entering; and even then she appeared demurely unconscious of my existence. “If you please, Miss Sylvia, Miss Vyne has woke up and I’ve taken in the tea.”
Such was the paltry interruption that arrested the flow of my eloquence and scattered my flowers of rhetoric to the winds. I murmured inwardly, “Blow the tea!” for the opportunity was gone; but I comforted myself with the reflection that it didn’t matter very much, since Sylvia and I seemed to have arrived at a pretty clear understanding; which understanding was further clarified by a momentary contact of our hands as we followed the maid to the drawing-room. Miss Vyne was on this occasion, as on the last, seated in the exact centre of the room, and with the same monumental effect; so that my thoughts were borne irresistibly to the ethnographical section of the British Museum, and especially to that part of it wherein the deities of Polynesia look out from their cases in perennial surprise at the degenerate European visitors. If she had been asleep previously, she was wide enough awake now; but the glittering eyes were not directed at me. From the moment of our entering the room they focussed themselves on Sylvia’s face and there remained riveted, whereby the heightening of that young lady’s complexion, which our interview had produced, became markedly accentuated. It was to no purpose that I placed myself before the rigid figure and offered my hand. A paw was lifted automatically to mine, but the eyes remained fixed on Sylvia. “What did you say this gentleman’s name was!” the waxwork asked frigidly.
“This is Dr. Jardine,” was the reply.
“Oh, indeed. And who was the gentleman who called some three weeks ago?”
“Why, that was Dr. Jardine; you know it was.”
“So I thought, but my memory is not very reliable. And this is a Dr. Jardine, too? Very interesting. A medical family, apparently. But not much alike.”
I was beginning to explain my identity and the cause of my altered appearance, when Sylvia approached with a cup of tea and a carefully dissected muffin, which latter she thrust under the nose of the elder lady; who regarded it attentively and with a slight squint, owing to its nearness. “It’s of no use, you know,” said Sylvia, “for you to pretend that you don’t know him, because I’ve told you all about the transformation—that is, all I know myself. Don’t you think it’s rather a clever make-up?”
“If,” said Miss Vyne, “by ‘make-up’ you mean a disguise, I think it is highly successful. The beard is a most admirable imitation.”
“Oh, the beard is his own; at least, I think it is.”
I confirmed this statement, ignoring Polton’s slight additions. “Indeed,” said Miss Vyne. “Then the wig—it is a wig, I suppose?”
“No, of course it isn’t,” Sylvia replied.
“Then,” said Miss Vyne, majestically, “perhaps you will explain to me what the disguise consists of.”
“Well,” said Sylvia, “there are the eyebrows. You can see that they have been completely altered in shape.”
“If I had committed the former shape of the eyebrows to memory, as you appear to have done,” said Miss Vyne. “I should, no doubt, observe the change. But I did not. It seems to me that the disguise which you told me about with such a flourish of trumpets just amounts to this; that Dr. Jardine has allowed his beard to grow. I find the reality quite disappointing.”
“Do you?” said Sylvia. “But, at any rate, you didn’t recognize him; so your disappointment doesn’t count for much.”
The old lady, being thus hoist with her own petard, relapsed into majestic silence; and Sylvia then renewed her demand for an account of my adventures. “We want to hear all abo
ut that objectionable person who has been shadowing you, and how you finally got rid of him. Your letters were rather sketchy and wanting in detail, so you have got to make up the deficiency now.”
Thus commanded, I plunged into an exhaustive account of those events which I have already chronicled at length and which I need not refer to again, nor need I record the cross-examination to which I was subjected, since it elicited nothing that is not set forth in the preceding pages. When I had finished my recital, however, Miss Vyne, who had listened to it in silence, hitherto, put a question which I had some doubts about answering. “Have you or Dr. Thorndyke been able to discover who this inquisitive person is and what is his object in following you about?”
I hesitated. As to my own experiences, I had no secrets from these friends of mine, excepting those that related to the subjects of Thorndyke’s investigations, But I must not come here and babble about what took place in the sacred precincts of my principal’s chambers. “I think I may tell you,” said I, “that Dr. Thorndyke has discovered the identity of this man and that he is not the person whom we suspected him to be. But I mustn’t say any more, as the information came through professional channels and consequently is not mine to give.”
“Of course you mustn’t,” said Sylvia; “though I don’t mind admitting that you have put me on tenterhooks of curiosity. But I daresay you will be able to tell us everything later.”
I agreed that I probably should; and the talk then turned into fresh channels.
The short winter day was running out apace. The daylight had long since gone, and I began, with infinite reluctance, to think of returning to my cage. Indeed, when I looked at my watch, I was horrified to see how the time had fled. “My word!” I exclaimed. “I must be off, or Thorndyke will be putting the sleuth-hounds of the law on my track. And I don’t know what you will think of me for having stayed such an unconscionable time.”
“It isn’t a ceremonial visit,” said Sylvia, as I rose and made my adieux to her aunt. “We should have liked you to stay much longer.”
Here she paused suddenly, and, clasping her hands, gazed at me with an expression of dismay. “Good Heavens! Humphrey!” she exclaimed.
“Eh?” said Miss Vyne.
“I was addressing Dr. Jardine,” Sylvia explained, in some confusion.
“I didn’t suppose you were addressing me,” was the withering reply.
“Do you know,” said Sylvia, “that I haven’t shown you those sketches, after all. You must see them. They were the special object of your visit.”
This was perfectly untrue, and she knew it; but I did not think it worth while to contest the statement in Miss Vyne’s presence. Accordingly I expressed the utmost eagerness to see the trumpery sketches, and the more so since I had understood that they were on view in the studio; which turned out to be the case. “It won’t take a minute for you to see them,” said Sylvia. “I’ll just run up and light the gas; and you are not to come in until I tell you.”
She preceded me up the stairs to the little room on the first floor in which she worked, and, when I had waited a few moments on the landing she summoned me to enter. “These are the sketches,” said she, “that I have finished. You see, they are quite presentable now. I cleaned off the rough daubs of paint with a scraper and finished up with a soft rag dipped in chloroform.”
I ran my eye over the framed sketches, which, now that the canvases were strained on stretchers and the disfiguring brush-strokes removed, were, as she had said, quite presentable, though too rough and unfinished to be attractive. “I daresay they are very interesting,” said I, “but they are only bare beginnings. I shouldn’t have thought them worth framing.”
“Not as pictures,” she agreed, “but as examples of a very curious technique, I find them most instructive. However, you haven’t seen the real gem of the collection. This is it, on the easel. Sit down, on the chair and say when you are ready. I’m going to give you a surprise.”
I seated myself on the chair opposite the easel, on which was a canvas with its back towards me. “Now,” said Sylvia. “Are you ready? One, two, three!”
She picked up the canvas, and, turning it round quickly, presented its face to me. I don’t know what I had expected—if I had expected anything; but certainly I was not in the least prepared for what I saw. The sketch had originally represented, very roughly, a dark mass of trees which occupied nearly the whole of the canvas; but of this the middle had been cleaned away, exposing an under painting. And this it was that filled me with such amazement that, after a first startled exclamation, I could do nothing but stare open-mouthed at the canvas; for, from the opening in the dark mass of foliage there looked out at me, distinct and unmistakable, the face of Mrs. Samway.
It was no illusion or chance resemblance. Rough as the painting was, the likeness was excellent. All the well-known features which made her so different from other women were there, though expressed by a mere dextrous turn of the knife; the jet-black, formally-parted hair, the clear, bright complexion, the pale, inscrutable eyes; all were there, even to the steady, penetrating expression that looked out at me from the canvas as if in silent recognition. As I sat staring at the picture with a surprise that almost amounted to awe, Sylvia looked at me a little blankly. “Well!” she exclaimed, at length, “I meant to give you a surprise, but—what is it, Humphrey? Do you know her?”
“Yes,” I replied, “and so do you. Don’t you remember a woman who looked in at you through the glass door of Robinson’s shop.”
“Do you mean that black and scarlet creature? I didn’t recognize her. I had no idea she was so handsome; for this is really a very beautiful face, though there is something about it that I don’t understand. Something—well eerie; rather uncanny and almost sinister. Don’t you think so?”
“I have always thought her a rather weird woman, but this is the weirdest appearance she has made. How on earth came her face on that canvas?”
“It is an odd coincidence. And yet I don’t know that it is. She may have been some relative of that rather eccentric artist, or even his wife. I don’t know why it shouldn’t be so.”
Neither did I. But the coincidence remained a very striking one, to me, at least; much more so than Sylvia realized; though what its significance might be—if it had any—I could not guess. Nor was there any opportunity to discuss it at the moment, for it was high time for me to be gone. “You will send me a telegram when you get back, to say that you have arrived home safely, won’t you,” said Sylvia, as we descended the stairs with our arms linked together. “Of course nothing is going to happen to you, but I can’t help feeling a little nervous. And you’ll go down to the station by the High Street, and keep to the main roads. That is a promise, isn’t it?”
I made the promise readily having decided previously to take every possible precaution, and, when I had wished Sylvia “good-bye” at some length, I proceeded to execute it; making my way down the well-populated High Street and keeping a bright look-out both there and at the station. Once more I was fortunate in the matter of trains, and, having taken a hansom from Broad Street to the Temple, was set down in King’s Bench Walk soon after half-past six.
As I approached our building, I looked up with some anxiety at the sitting-room windows; and when I saw them brightly lighted, a suspicion that Thorndyke had returned earlier than usual filled me with foreboding, I had had my dance and now I was going to pay the piper, and I did not much enjoy the prospect; in fact, as I ascended the stairs and took my latch-key from my pocket, I was as nervous as a school-boy who has been playing truant However, there was no escape unless I sneaked up to my bed-room, so, inserting the key into the lock, I turned it as boldly as I could, and entered.
* * *
XVIII — A VISITOR FROM THE STATES
AS I pushed open the inner door and entered the room I conceived the momentary hope of a reprieve from the wrath to come, for I found my two friends in what was evidently a business consultation with a stranger, and was
on the point of backing out when Thorndyke stopped me. “Don’t run away, Howard,” said he. “There are no secrets being disclosed—at least, I think not. We have finished with your affairs, Mr. O’Donnell, haven’t we?”
“Yes, doctor,” was the answer; “you’ve run me dry with the exception—of your own little business.”
“Then, come in and sit down, Howard, and let me present you to Mr. O’Donnell, who is a famous American detective and has been telling us all sorts of wonderful things.”
Mr. O’Donnell paused in the act of returning a quantity of papers to a large attache case and offered his hand. “The doctor,” he remarked, “is blowing his trumpet at the wrong end. I haven’t come here to give information but to get advice. But I guess I needn’t tell you that.”
“I hope that isn’t quite true,” said Thorndyke. “You spoke just now of my little business; haven’t you anything to tell me?”
“I have; but I fancy it isn’t what you wanted to hear. However, we’ll just have a look at your letter to Curtis and take your questions one by one. By the way, what made you write to Curtis?”
“I saw, when I inspected Maddock’s will at Somerset House, that he had left a small legacy to Curtis. Naturally, I inferred that Curtis knew him and could give me some account of him.”
“It struck you as a bit queer, I reckon, that he should be leaving a legacy to the head of an American detective agency.”
“The circumstance suggested possibilities,” Thorndyke admitted.
O’Donnell laughed. “I can guess what possibilities suggested themselves to you, if you knew Maddock. Your letter and the lawyer’s, announcing the legacy, came within a mail or two of one another. Curtis showed them both to me and we grinned. We took it for granted that the worthy testator was foxing. But we were wrong. And so are you, if that is what you thought.”
“You assumed that the will was not a genuine one?”
“Yes; we thought it was a fake, put up with the aid of some shyster to bluff us into giving up Mr. Maddock as deceased. So, as I had to come across about these other affairs, Curtis suggested that I should look into the matter. And a considerable surprise I got when I did; for the will is perfectly regular and so is everything else. That legacy was a sort of posthumous joke, I guess.”
A Silent Witness Page 24