“It is quite like old times—and very pleasant old times, too—to see you sitting at our breakfast-table, Dr. Jervis.” With these gracious words and a friendly smile, Mrs. Hanshaw handed me my tea-cup.
I bowed. “The highest pleasure of the altruist,” I replied, “is in contemplating the good fortune of others.”
Mrs. Haldean laughed. “Thank you,” she said. “You are quite unchanged, I perceive. Still as suave and as—shall I say oleaginous?”
“No, please don’t!” I exclaimed in a tone of alarm.
“Then I won’t. But what does Dr. Thorndyke say to this backsliding on your part? How does he regard this relapse from medical jurisprudence to common general practice?”
“Thorndyke,” said I, “is unmoved by any catastrophe; and he not only regards the ‘Decline and Fall-off of the Medical Jurist’ with philosophic calm, but he even favours the relapse, as you call it. He thinks it may be useful to me to study the application of medico-legal methods to general practice.”
“That sounds rather unpleasant—for the patients, I mean,” remarked Miss Haldean.
“Very,” agreed her aunt. “Most cold-blooded. What sort of man is Dr. Thorndyke? I feel quite curious about him. Is he at all human, for instance?”
“He is entirely human,” I replied; “the accepted tests of humanity being, as I understand, the habitual adoption of the erect posture in locomotion, and the relative position of the end of the thumb—”
“I don’t mean that,” interrupted Mrs. Haldean. “I mean human in things that matter.”
“I think those things matter,” I rejoined. “Consider, Mrs. Haldean, what would happen if my learned colleague were to be seen in wig and gown, walking towards the Law Courts in any posture other than the erect. It would be a public scandal.”
“Don’t talk to him, Mabel,” said Mrs. Hanshaw; “he is incorrigible. What are you doing with yourself this morning, Lucy?”
Miss Haldean (who had hastily set down her cup to laugh at my imaginary picture of Dr. Thorndyke in the character of a quadruped) considered a moment.
“I think I shall sketch that group of birches at the edge of Bradham Wood,” she said.
“Then, in that case,” said I, “I can carry your traps for you, for I have to see a patient in Bradham.”
“He is making the most of his time,” remarked Mrs. Haldean maliciously to my hostess. “He knows that when Mr. Winter arrives he will retire into the extreme background.”
Douglas Winter, whose arrival was expected in the course of the week, was Miss Haldean’s fiancé. Their engagement had been somewhat protracted, and was likely to be more so, unless one of them received some unexpected accession of means; for Douglas was a subaltern in the Royal Engineers, living, with great difficulty, on his pay, while Lucy Haldean subsisted on an almost invisible allowance left her by an uncle.
I was about to reply to Mrs. Haldean when a patient was announced, and, as I had finished my breakfast, I made my excuses and left the table.
Half an hour later, when I started along the road to the village of Bradham, I had two companions. Master Freddy had joined the party, and he disputed with me the privilege of carrying the “traps,” with the result that a compromise was effected, by which he carried the camp-stool, leaving me in possession of the easel, the bag, and a large bound sketching-block.
“Where are you going to work this morning?” I asked, when we had trudged on some distance.
“Just off the road to the left there, at the edge of the wood. Not very far from the house of the mysterious stranger.” She glanced at me mischievously as she made this reply, and chuckled with delight when I rose at the bait.
“What house do you mean?” I inquired.
“Ha!” she exclaimed, “the investigator of mysteries is aroused. He saith, ‘Ha! Ha!’ amidst the trumpets; he smelleth the battle afar off.”
“Explain instantly,” I commanded, “or I drop your sketch-block into the very next puddle.”
“You terrify me,” said she. “But I will explain, only there isn’t any mystery except to the bucolic mind. The house is called Lavender Cottage, and it stands alone in the fields behind the wood. A fortnight ago it was let furnished to a stranger named Whitelock, who has taken it for the purpose of studying the botany of the district; and the only really mysterious thing about him is that no one has seen him. All arrangements with the house-agent were made by letter, and, as far as I can make out, none of the local tradespeople supply him, so he must get his things from a distance—even his bread, which really is rather odd. Now say I am an inquisitive, gossiping country bumpkin.”
“I was going to,” I answered, “but it is no use now.”
She relieved me of her sketching appliances with pretended indignation, and crossed into the meadow, leaving me to pursue my way alone; and when I presently looked back, she was setting up her easel and stool, gravely assisted by Freddy.
My “round,” though not a long one, took up more time than I had anticipated, and it was already past the luncheon hour when I passed the place where I had left Miss Haldean. She was gone, as I had expected, and I hurried homewards, anxious to be as nearly punctual as possible. When I entered the dining-room, I found Mrs. Haldean and our hostess seated at the table, and both looked up at me expectantly.
“Have you seen Lucy?” the former inquired.
“No,” I answered. “Hasn’t she come back? I expected to find her here. She had left the wood when I passed just now.”
Mrs. Haldean knitted her brows anxiously. “It is very strange,” she said, “and very thoughtless of her. Freddy will be famished.”
I hurried over my lunch, for two fresh messages had come in from outlying hamlets, effectually dispelling my visions of a quiet afternoon; and as the minutes passed without bringing any signs of the absentees, Mrs. Haldean became more and more restless and anxious. At length her suspense became unbearable; she rose suddenly, announcing her intention of cycling up the road to look for the defaulters, but as she was moving towards the door, it burst open, and Lucy Haldean staggered into the room.
Her appearance filled us with alarm. She was deadly pale, breathless, and wild-eyed; her dress was draggled and torn, and she trembled from head to foot.
“Good God, Lucy!” gasped Mrs. Haldean. “What has happened? And where is Freddy?” she added in a sterner tone.
“He is lost!” replied Miss Haldean in a faint voice, and with a catch in her breath. “He strayed away while I was painting. I have searched the wood through, and called to him, and looked in all the meadows. Oh! Where can he have gone?” Her sketching “kit,” with which she was loaded, slipped from her grasp and rattled on to the floor, and she buried her face in her hands and sobbed hysterically.
“And you have dared to come back without him?” exclaimed Mrs. Haldean.
“I was getting exhausted. I came back for help,” was the faint reply.
“Of course she was exhausted,” said Mrs. Hanshaw. “Come, Lucy: come, Mabel; don’t make mountains out of molehills. The little man is safe enough. We shall find him presently, or he will come home by himself. Come and have some food, Lucy.”
Miss Haldean shook her head. “I can’t, Mrs. Hanshaw—really I can’t,” she said; and, seeing that she was in a state of utter exhaustion, I poured out a glass of wine and made her drink it.
Mrs. Haldean darted from the room, and returned immediately, putting on her hat. “You have got to come with me and show me where you lost him,” she said.
“She can’t do that, you know,” I said rather brusquely. “She will have to lie down for the present. But I know the place, and will cycle up with you.”
“Very well,” replied Mrs. Haldean, “that will do. What time was it,” she asked, turning to her niece, “when you lost the child? And which way—”
She paused abruptly, and I looked at her in surprise. She had suddenly turned ashen and ghastly; her face had set like a mask of stone, with parted lips and staring eyes that were
fixed in horror on her niece.
There was a deathly silence for a few seconds. Then, in a terrible voice, she demanded: “What is that on your dress, Lucy?” And, after a pause, her voice rose into a shriek. “What have you done to my boy?”
I glanced in astonishment at the dazed and terrified girl, and then I saw what her aunt had seen—a good-sized blood-stain halfway down the front of her skirt, and another smaller one on her right sleeve. The girl herself looked down at the sinister patch of red and then up at her aunt. “It looks like—like blood,” she stammered. “Yes, it is—I think—of course it is. He struck his nose—and it bled—”
“Come,” interrupted Mrs. Haldean, “let us go,” and she rushed from the room, leaving me to follow.
I lifted Miss Haldean, who was half fainting with fatigue and agitation, on to the sofa, and, whispering a few words of encouragement into her ear, turned to Mrs. Hanshaw.
“I can’t stay with Mrs. Haldean,” I said. “There are two visits to be made at Rebworth. Will you send the dogcart up the road with somebody to take my place?”
“Yes,” she answered. “I will send Giles, or come myself if Lucy is fit to be left.”
I ran to the stables for my bicycle, and as I pedalled out into the road I could see Mrs. Haldean already far ahead, driving her machine at frantic speed. I followed at a rapid pace, but it was not until we approached the commencement of the wood, when she slowed down somewhat, that I overtook her.
“This is the place,” I said, as we reached the spot where I had parted from Miss Haldean. We dismounted and wheeled our bicycles through the gate, and laying them down beside the hedge, crossed the meadow and entered the wood.
It was a terrible experience, and one that I shall never forget—the white-faced, distracted woman, tramping in her flimsy house-shoes over the rough ground, bursting through the bushes, regardless of the thorny branches that dragged at skin and hair and dainty clothing, and sending forth from time to time a tremulous cry, so dreadfully pathetic in its mingling of terror and coaxing softness, that a lump rose in my throat, and I could barely keep my self-control.
“Freddy! Freddy-boy! Mummy’s here, darling!” The wailing cry sounded through the leafy solitude; but no answer came save the whir of wings or the chatter of startled birds. But even more shocking than that terrible cry—more disturbing and eloquent with dreadful suggestion—was the way in which she peered, furtively, but with fearful expectation, among the roots of the bushes, or halted to gaze upon every molehill and hummock, every depression or disturbance of the ground.
So we stumbled on for a while, with never a word spoken, until we came to a beaten track or footpath leading across the wood. Here I paused to examine the footprints, of which several were visible in the soft earth, though none seemed very recent; but, proceeding a little way down the track, I perceived, crossing it, a set of fresh imprints, which I recognized at once as Miss Haldean’s. She was wearing, as I knew, a pair of brown golf-boots, with rubber pads in the leather soles, and the prints made by them were unmistakable.
“Miss Haldean crossed the path here,” I said, pointing to the footprints.
“Don’t speak of her before me!” exclaimed Mrs. Haldean; but she gazed eagerly at the footprints, nevertheless, and immediately plunged into the wood to follow the tracks.
“You are very unjust to your niece, Mrs. Haldean,” I ventured to protest.
She halted, and faced me with an angry frown.
“You don’t understand!” she exclaimed. “You don’t know, perhaps, that if my poor child is really dead, Lucy Haldean will be a rich woman, and may marry tomorrow if she chooses?”
“I did not know that,” I answered, “but if I had, I should have said the same.”
“Of course you would,” she retorted bitterly. “A pretty face can muddle any man’s judgment.”
She turned away abruptly to resume her pursuit, and I followed in silence. The trail which we were following zigzagged through the thickest part of the wood, but its devious windings eventually brought us out on to an open space on the farther side. Here we at once perceived traces of another kind. A litter of dirty rags, pieces of paper, scraps of stale bread, bones and feathers, with hoof-marks, wheel ruts, and the ashes of a large wood fire, pointed clearly to a gypsy encampment recently broken up. I laid my hand on the heap of ashes, and found it still warm, and on scattering it with my foot a layer of glowing cinders appeared at the bottom.
“These people have only been gone an hour or two,” I said. “It would be well to have them followed without delay.”
A gleam of hope shone on the drawn, white face as the bereaved mother caught eagerly at my suggestion.
“Yes,” she exclaimed breathlessly; “she may have bribed them to take him away. Let us see which way they went.”
We followed the wheel tracks down to the road, and found that they turned towards London. At the same time I perceived the dogcart in the distance, with Mrs. Hanshaw standing beside it; and, as the coachman observed me, he whipped up his horse and approached.
“I shall have to go,” I said, “but Mrs. Hanshaw will help you to continue the search.”
“And you will make inquiries about the gypsies, won’t you?” she said.
I promised to do so, and as the dogcart now came up, I climbed to the seat, and drove off briskly up the London Road.
The extent of a country doctor’s round is always an unknown quantity. On the present occasion I picked up three additional patients, and as one of them was a case of incipient pleurisy, which required to have the chest strapped, and another was a neglected dislocation of the shoulder, a great deal of time was taken up. Moreover, the gypsies, whom I ran to earth on Rebworth Common, delayed me considerably, though I had to leave the rural constable to carry out the actual search, and, as a result, the clock of Burling Church was striking six as I drove through the village on my way home.
I got down at the front gate, leaving the coachman to take the dogcart round, and walked up the drive; and my astonishment may be imagined when, on turning the corner, I came suddenly upon the inspector of the local police in earnest conversation with no less a person than John Thorndyke.
“What on earth has brought you here?” I exclaimed, my surprise getting the better of my manners.
“The ultimate motive-force,” he replied, “was an impulsive lady named Mrs. Haldean. She telegraphed for me—in your name.”
“She oughtn’t to have done that,” I said.
“Perhaps not. But the ethics of an agitated woman are not worth discussing, and she has done something much worse—she has applied to the local J.P. (a retired Major-General), and our gallant and unlearned friend has issued a warrant for the arrest of Lucy Haldean on the charge of murder.”
“But there has been no murder!” I exclaimed.
“That,” said Thorndyke, “is a legal subtlety that he does not appreciate. He has learned his law in the orderly-room, where the qualifications to practise are an irritable temper and a loud voice. However, the practical point is, inspector, that the warrant is irregular. You can’t arrest people for hypothetical crimes.”
The officer drew a deep breath of relief. He knew all about the irregularity, and now joyfully took refuge behind Thorndyke’s great reputation.
When he had departed—with a brief note from my colleague to the General—Thorndyke slipped his arm through mine, and we strolled towards the house.
“This is a grim business, Jervis,” said he. “That boy has got to be found for everybody’s sake. Can you come with me when you have had some food?”
“Of course I can. I have been saving myself all the afternoon with a view to continuing the search.”
“Good,” said Thorndyke. “Then come in and feed.”
A nondescript meal, half tea and half dinner, was already prepared, and Mrs. Hanshaw, grave but self-possessed, presided at the table.
“Mabel is still out with Giles, searching for the boy,” she said. “You have heard what s
he has done!”
I nodded.
“It was dreadful of her,” continued Mrs. Hanshaw, “but she is half mad, poor thing. You might run up and say a few kind words to poor Lucy while I make the tea.”
I went up at once and knocked at Miss Haldean’s door, and, being bidden to enter, found her lying on the sofa, red-eyed and pale, the very ghost of the merry, laughing girl who had gone out with me in the morning. I drew up a chair, and sat down by her side, and as I took the hand she held out to me, she said:
“It is good of you to come and see a miserable wretch like me. And Jane has been so sweet to me, Dr. Jervis; but Aunt Mabel thinks I have killed Freddy—you know she does—and it was really my fault that he was lost. I shall never forgive myself!”
She burst into a passion of sobbing, and I proceeded to chide her gently.
“You are a silly little woman,” I said, “to take this nonsense to heart as you are doing. Your aunt is not responsible just now, as you must know; but when we bring the boy home she shall make you a handsome apology. I will see to that.”
She pressed my hand gratefully, and as the bell now rang for tea, I bade her have courage and went downstairs.
“You need not trouble about the practice,” said Mrs. Hanshaw, as I concluded my lightning repast, and Thorndyke went off to get our bicycles. “Dr. Symons has heard of our trouble, and has called to say that he will take anything that turns up; so we shall expect you when we see you.”
“How do you like Thorndyke?” I asked.
“He is quite charming,” she replied enthusiastically; “so tactful and kind, and so handsome, too. You didn’t tell us that. But here he is. Good-bye, and good luck.”
She pressed my hand, and I went out into the drive, where Thorndyke and the coachman were standing with three bicycles.
“I see you have brought your outfit,” I said as we turned into the road; for Thorndyke’s machine bore a large canvas-covered case strapped on to a strong bracket.
“Yes; there are many things that we may want on a quest of this kind. How did you find Miss Haldean?”
The First R. Austin Freeman Megapack: 27 Mystery Tales of Dr. Thorndyke & Others Page 29