The First R. Austin Freeman Megapack: 27 Mystery Tales of Dr. Thorndyke & Others

by R. Austin Freeman

  “So you never wore your copy?”

  “No. I wanted to have it altered to make it fit, but he objected strongly; so I put it away, and have it in a box still.”

  “He must have been an extraordinarily pig-headed old fellow,” I remarked.

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

  I assented eagerly. If it had been a coal-shed or a fried-fish shop I would still have visited it with pleasure, for the sake of prolonging our walk; but I was also really interested in this old house as a part of 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 moments looking into the peaceful, stately old square. A party of boys disported themselves noisily on the range of stone posts that form a bodyguard round the ancient lamp-surmounted pump, but otherwise the place was wrapped in dignified repose suited to its age and station. And very pleasant it looked on this summer afternoon, with the sunlight gilding the foliage of its wide-spreading plane trees and lighting up the warm-toned brick of the house-fronts. We walked slowly down the shady west side, near the middle of which my companion halted.

  “This is the house,” she said. “It looks gloomy and forsaken now; but it must have been a delightful house in the days when my ancestors could look out of the windows through the open end of the square across the fields and meadows to the heights of Hampstead and Highgate.”

  She stood at the edge of the pavement looking up with a curious wistfulness at the old house; a very pathetic figure, I thought, with her handsome face and proud carriage, her threadbare dress and shabby gloves, standing at the threshold of the home that had been her family’s for generations, that should now have been hers, and that was shortly to pass away into the hands of strangers.

  I, too, looked up at it with a strange interest, impressed by something gloomy and forbidding in its aspect. The windows were shuttered from basement to attic, and no sign of life was visible. Silent, neglected, desolate, it breathed an air of tragedy. It seemed to mourn in sackcloth and ashes for its lost master. The massive door within the splendid carven portico was crusted with grime, and seemed to have passed out of use as completely as the ancient lamp-irons or the rusted extinguishers wherein the footmen were wont to quench their torches when some Bellingham dame was borne up the steps in her gilded chair, in the days of good Queen Anne.

  It was in a somewhat sobered frame of mind that we presently turned away and started homeward by way of Great Ormond Street. My companion was deeply thoughtful, relapsing for a while into that sombreness of manner that had so impressed me when I first met her. Nor was I without a certain 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 we arrived at the entrance to Nevill’s Court, and Miss Bellingham halted and 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 notebooks.”

  “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, she was 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 the notes would be useless. Do you want the bag?”

  “No, of course not. But I am positively appalled. Hadn’t you better give up the idea?”

  “And is this the end of our collaboration?” I exclaimed tragically, giving her hand a final squeeze (whereby she became suddenly aware of its position, and withdrew it rather hastily). “Would you throw away a whole afternoon’s work? I won’t, certainly; so, good-bye until tomorrow. I shall turn up in the reading-room as early as I can. You had better take the tickets. Oh, and you won’t forget about the copy of the 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 into the court.

  CHAPTER VII

  JOHN Bellingham’S WILL

  The task upon which I had embarked so lightheartedly, when considered in cold blood, did certainly appear, as Miss Bellingham had said, rather appalling. The result of two and a half hours’ pretty steady work at an average speed of nearly a hundred words a minute, would take some time to transcribe into longhand; and if the notes were to be delivered punctually on the morrow, the sooner I got to work the better.

  Recognising this truth, I lost no time, but, within five minutes of my arrival at the surgery, was seated at the writing-table with my copy before me busily converting the sprawling, inexpressive characters into good, legible round-hand.

  The occupation was by no means unpleasant, apart from the fact that it was a labour of love; for the sentences, as I picked them up, were fragrant with reminiscences of the gracious whisper in which they had first come to me. And then the matter itself was full of interest. I was gaining a fresh outlook on life, was crossing the threshold of a new world (which was her world); and so the occasional interruptions from patients, while they gave me intervals of enforced rest, were far from welcome.

  The evening wore on without any sign from Nevill’s Court, and I began to fear that Mr. Bellingham’s scruples had proved insurmountable. Not, I am afraid, that I was so much concerned for the copy of the will as for the possibility of a visit, no matter howsoever brief, from my fair employer; and when, on the stroke of half-past seven, the surgery door flew open with startling abruptness, my fears were allayed and my hopes shattered simultaneously. For it was Miss Oman who stalked in, holding out a blue foolscap envelope with a warlike air as if it were an ultimatum.

  “I’ve brought you this from Mr. Bellingham,” she said. “There’s a note inside.”

  “May I read the note, Miss Oman?” I asked.

  “Bless the man!” she exclaimed. “What else would you do with it? Isn’t that what I brought it for?”

  I supposed it was; and, thanking her for her gracious permission, I glanced through the note—a few lines authorising me to show the copy of the will to Dr. Thorndyke. When I looked up from the paper I found her eyes fixed on me with an expression critical and rather disapproving.

  “You seem to be making yourself mighty agreeable in a certain quarter,” she remarked.

  “I make myself universally agreeable. It is my nature to.”

  “Ha!” she snorted.

  “Don’t you find me rather agreeable?” I asked.

  “Oily,” said Miss Oman. And then, with a sour smile at the open notebooks, she remarked:

  “You’ve got some work to do now; quite a change for you.”

  “A delightful change, Miss Oman. ‘For Satan findeth’—but no doubt you are acquainted with the philosophical works of Doctor Watts?”

  “If you are referring to ‘idle hands,’” she replied, “I’ll give you a bit of advice, Don’t you keep that hand idle any longer than is really necessary. I have my suspicions about that splint—oh, you know what I mean,” and before I had time to reply, she had taken advantage of the entrance of a couple of patients to whisk out of the surgery with the abruptness that had distinguished her arrival.

  The evening consultations were considered to be over by half-past eight; at wh
ich time Adolphus was wont, with exemplary punctuality, to close the outer door of the surgery. Tonight he was not less prompt than usual; and having performed this, his last daily office, and turned down the surgery gas, he reported the fact and took his departure.

  As his retreating footsteps died away and the slamming of the outer door announced his final disappearance, I sat up and stretched myself. The envelope containing the copy of the will lay on the table, and I considered it thoughtfully. It ought to be conveyed to Thorndyke with as little delay as possible, and, as it certainly could not be trusted out of my hands, it ought to be conveyed by me.

  I looked at the notebooks. Nearly two hours’ work had made a considerable impression on the matter that I had to transcribe, but still, a great deal of the task yet remained to be done. However, I reflected, I could put in a couple of hours more before going to bed and there would be an hour or two to spare in the morning. Finally I locked the notebooks, open as they were, in the writing-table drawer, and slipping the envelope into my pocket, set out for the Temple.

  The soft chime of the Treasury clock was telling out, in confidential tones, the third quarter as I wrapped with my stick on the forbidding “oak” of my friends’ chambers. There was no response, nor had I perceived any gleam of light from the windows as I approached, and I was considering the advisability of trying the laboratory on the next floor, when footsteps on the stone stairs and familiar voices gladdened my ear.

  “Hallo, Berkeley!” said Thorndyke, “do we find you waiting like a Peri at the gates of Paradise? Polton is upstairs, you know, tinkering at one of his inventions. If you ever find the nest empty, you had better go up and bang at the laboratory door. He’s always there in the evenings.”

  “I haven’t been waiting long,” said I, “and I was just thinking of rousing him up when you came.”

  “That was right,” said Thorndyke, turning up the gas. “And what news do you bring? Do I see a blue envelope sticking out of your pocket?”

  “You do.”

  “Is it a copy of the will?” he asked.

  I answered “yes,” and added that I had full permission to show it to him.

  “What did I tell you?” exclaimed Jervis. “Didn’t I say that he would get the copy for us if it existed?”

  “We admit the excellence of your prognosis,” said Thorndyke, “but there is no need to be boastful. Have you read through the document, Berkeley?”

  “No, I haven’t taken it out of the envelope.”

  “Then it will be equally new to us all, and we shall see if it tallies with your description.”

  He placed three easy chairs at a convenient distance from the light, and Jervis, watching him with a smile, remarked:

  “Now Thorndyke is going to enjoy himself. To him, a perfectly unintelligible will is a thing of beauty and a joy for ever; especially if associated with some kind of recondite knavery.”

  “I don’t know,” said I, “that this will is particularly unintelligible. The mischief seems to be that it is rather too intelligible. However, here it is,” and I handed the envelope to Thorndyke.

  “I suppose that we can depend on this copy,” said the latter, as he drew out the document and glanced at it. “Oh, yes,” he added, “I see it is copied by Godfrey Bellingham, compared with the original and certified correct. In that case I will get you to read it out slowly, Jervis, and I will make a rough copy to keep for reference. Let us make ourselves comfortable and light our pipes before we begin.”

  He provided himself with a writing-pad, and, when we had seated ourselves and got our pipes well alight, Jervis opened the document, and with a premonitory “hem!” commenced the reading.

  “In the name of God Amen. This is the last will and testament of me John Bellingham of number 141 Queen Square in the parish of St. George Bloomsbury London in the county of Middlesex Gentleman made this twenty first day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and ninety-two.

  “1. I give and bequeath unto Arthur Jellicoe of number 184 New Square Lincoln’s Inn London in the county of Middlesex Attorney-at-law the whole of my collection of seals and scarabs and those my cabinets marked B, C, and D together with the contents thereof and the sum of two thousand pounds sterling free of legacy duty.

  “Unto the Trustees of the British Museum the residue of my collection of antiquities.

  “Unto my cousin George Hurst of The Poplars Eltham in the county of Kent the sum of five thousand pounds free of legacy duty and unto my brother Godfrey Bellingham or if he should die before the occurrence of my death unto his daughter Ruth Bellingham the residue of my estate and effects real and personal subject to the conditions set forth hereinafter namely:

  “2. That my body shall be deposited with those of my ancestors in the churchyard appertaining to the church and parish of St. George the Martyr or if that shall not be possible, in some other churchyard, cemetery, burial ground, church, chapel or other authorised place for the reception of the bodies of the dead situate within or appertaining to the parishes of St. Andrew above the Bars and St. George the Martyr or St. George Bloomsbury and St. Giles in the Fields. But if the conditions in this clause be not carried out then

  “3. I give and devise the said residue of my estate and effects unto my cousin George Hurst aforesaid and I hereby revoke all wills and codicils made by me at any time heretofore and I appoint Arthur Jellicoe aforesaid to be the executor of this my will jointly with the principal beneficiary and residuary legatee that is to say with the aforesaid Godfrey Bellingham if the conditions set forth hereinbefore in clause 2 shall be duly carried out but with the aforesaid George Hurst if the said conditions in the said clause 2 be not carried out.

  “John Bellingham.

  “Signed by the said testator John Bellingham in the presence of us present at the same time who at his request and in his presence and in the presence of each other have subscribed our names as witnesses.

  “Frederick Wilton, 16 Medford Road, London, N., clerk.

  “James Barker, 32 Wadbury Crescent, London, S.W., clerk.”

  “Well,” said Jervis, laying down the document as Thorndyke detached the last sheet from his writing-pad, “I have met with a good many idiotic wills, but this one can give them all points. I don’t see how it is ever going to be administered. One of the two executors is a mere abstraction—a sort of algebraical problem with no answer.”

  “I think that difficulty could be overcome,” said Thorndyke.

  “I don’t see how,” retorted Jervis. “If the body is deposited in a certain place, A is the executor; if it is somewhere else, B is the executor. But, as you cannot produce the body, and no one has the least idea where it is, it is impossible to prove either that it is or that it is not in any specified place.”

  “You are magnifying the difficulty, Jervis,” said Thorndyke. “The body may, of course, be anywhere in the entire world, but the place where it is lying is either inside or outside the general boundary of these two parishes. If it has been deposited within the boundary of those two parishes, the fact must be ascertainable by examining the burial certificates issued since the date when the missing man was last seen alive and by consulting the registers of those specified places of burial. I think that if no record can be found of any such interment within the boundary of those two parishes, that fact will be taken by the Court as proof that no such interment has taken place, and that therefore the body must have been deposited elsewhere. Such a decision would constitute George Hurst the co-executor and residuary legatee.”

  “That is cheerful for your friends, Berkeley,” Jervis remarked, “for we may take it as pretty certain that the body has not been deposited in any of the places named.”

  “Yes,” I agreed gloomily, “I’m afraid there is very little doubt of that. But what an ass the fellow must have been to make such a to-do about his beastly carcass? What the deuce could it have mattered to him where it was dumped, when he had done with it?”

  Thorndyke chuckl
ed softly. “Thus the irreverent youth of today,” said he. “But yours is hardly a fair comment, Berkeley. Our training makes us materialists, and puts us a little out of sympathy with those in whom primitive beliefs and emotions survive. A worthy priest who came to look at our dissecting-room expressed surprise to me that students, thus constantly in the presence of relics of mortality, should be able to think of anything but the resurrection and the life hereafter. He was a bad psychologist. There is nothing so dead as a dissecting-room ‘subject’; and the contemplation of the human body in the process of being quietly taken to pieces—being resolved into its structural units like a worn-out clock or an old engine in the Mr. Rapper’s yard—is certainly not conducive to a vivid realisation of the doctrine of the resurrection.”

  “No; but this absurd anxiety to be buried in some particular place has nothing to do with religious belief; it is mere silly sentiment.”

  “It is sentiment, I admit,” said Thorndyke, “but I wouldn’t call it silly. The feeling is so widespread in time and space that we must look on it with respect as something inherent in human nature. Think—as doubtless John Bellingham did—of the ancient Egyptians, whose chief aspiration was that of everlasting repose for the dead. See the trouble they took to achieve it. Think of the Great Pyramid, or that of Amenemhat the Fourth with its labyrinth of false passages and its sealed and hidden sepulchral chamber. Think of Jacob, borne after death all those hundreds of weary miles in order that he might sleep with his fathers, and then remember Shakespeare and his solemn adjuration to posterity to let him rest undisturbed in his grave. No, Berkeley, it is not a silly sentiment. I am as indifferent as you as to what becomes of my body ‘when I have done with it,’ to use your irreverent phrase; but I recognise the solicitude that some other men display on the subject as a natural feeling that has to be taken seriously.”