I walked slowly as far as the Junction Road in order to give any pursuer a fair opportunity to take up the chase and to make the necessary observations on my tasteful turn-out. At the Junction I waited for a tram and carefully abstained from staring about in a manner which would have embarrassed any person who might wish unobserved to share the conveyance with me; and from the terminus at Euston Road I proceeded in leisurely fashion on foot, still resisting the temptation to look about and see if I had picked up a companion by the way.
Salter’s Club was domiciled in a typical West End house situated in a quiet street of similar houses, graced at one end by a cabstand. I timed my arrival with such accuracy that a neighbouring church-clock struck one as I ascended the steps; and on my entering the hall, I was met by an elderly man in a quiet livery who seemed to expect me, for, when I mentioned Thorndyke’s name, he asked, “Dr. Jardine, sir?” and, hardly waiting for my reply, showed me to the cloak-room. “Dr. Thorndyke,” said he, “will be with you in a few minutes. When you have washed, I will show you to the dining room where he wished you to wait for him.”
I was just a little surprised at even this short delay, for Thorndyke was the soul of punctuality. However, I had not to wait long. I had been sitting less than three minutes at a small table laid for two in the deep bay window, scanning the street through the wire-gauze blinds, when he arrived. “I needn’t apologize, I suppose, Jardine,” he said, shaking my hand heartily. “You will have guessed why I have kept you waiting.”
“You flatter me, sir,” I replied with a slight grin. “I haven’t your powers of instantaneous deduction.”
“You hardly needed them,” he retorted. “Of course I was watching your approach and observing the corner by which you entered the street to see who came after you.”
“Did anyone come after me?”
“Several persons. I examined them all very carefully with a prism binocular that magnifies twelve times linear, and an assistant is now at the same window—the one over this—following the fortunes of those persons with the same excellent glass.”
“Did you spot anyone in particular as looking a likely person?”
“Yes. The second man who came after you seemed to be sauntering in a rather unpurposive fashion and looking a little obtrusively unconcerned. I noticed, too, that he was carrying an umbrella in his left hand. But we needn’t concern ourselves. If anyone is shadowing you we are certain to see him. He must expose himself to view from time to time, for he can’t afford to lose sight of our doorway for more than a few seconds, and there is practically no cover in this street.”
“He might hide in a doorway,” I suggested.
“Oh, might he! These are all clubs in this street. He’d very soon have the servants out wanting to know his business. No; he’ll have to keep on the move and he’ll have to keep mostly in sight of this house. And meanwhile we are going to take our lunch at our leisure and have a little talk to while away the time.”
The lunch was on a scale that my youthful appetite approved strongly, though the number of courses and irrelevant, time-consuming kickshaws struck me as rather unusual. And I never saw a man eat so slowly and delay a meal so much as Thorndyke did on that occasion. I believe that it took him fully twenty minutes to consume a fried sole; and even then he created a further delay by drawing my attention to the skeleton on his plate as an illustration of inherited deformity adjusted to special environmental conditions. But all the time, whether eating or talking, I noticed that his eye continually travelled up and down the stretch of street that was visible through the wire blinds. “You haven’t told me why you sent for me, sir,” I said, after waiting patiently for him to open the subject.
“I dare say you have guessed,” he replied;” but we may as well thrash the matter out now. You realize that you are running an enormous and unnecessary risk by going abroad with this man at your heels?”
“Well, I don’t suppose he is following me about from sheer affection.”
“No. I thought it possible that he might be a plain-clothes policeman, but I have ascertained that he is not. Who he is we don’t know, but we have the strongest reasons for suspecting his intentions. There have been three very determined attempts on your life. They were all made with such remarkable caution and foresight that, though they failed, practically no traces have been left. Those attempts imply a strong motive, though to us, an unknown one; and that motive, presumably, still exists. Your enemy may well be getting desperate, and may be prepared to take greater risks to get rid of you; and if he is, the chances are that he will succeed sooner or later. Murder isn’t very difficult to a cool-headed man who means business.”
“Then what do you propose, sir?”
“I propose that you disappear from your ordinary surroundings and come and stay, for a time, at my chambers in the Temple.”
This was no more than I had expected, but my jaw dropped considerably, notwithstanding. “It’s awfully good of you, sir,” I stammered—and so, to be sure, it was—“but don’t you think it would be simpler to turn the tables on this Johnnie and shadow him?”
“An excellent idea, Jardine, and one, I may say, that I am acting on at this moment. But there isn’t so much in it as you seem to think. Supposing we identify this man and even run him to earth? What then? We have nothing against him. We know of no crime that has been committed. We may suspect that the man whom you saw at Hampstead had been murdered. But we can’t prove it. We can’t produce the body or even prove that the man was dead. And we couldn’t connect this person with the affair because nobody was known to be connected with it. I should like to know who this man is, but I don’t want to put him on his guard; and above all, I can’t agree to your going about as a sort of live-bait to enable us to locate him. By the way, that man on the opposite side of the street is the one whom I selected as being probably your attendant. Apparently I was right, as this is the third time he has passed. Do you recognize him?”
I looked attentively at the uncharacteristic figure on the farther side of the street, but could find nothing familiar in his appearance. “No,” I replied; “he doesn’t look to me like the same man. He is dressed differently—but that’s nothing, as he has been dressed differently on each occasion—and that torpedo beard and full moustache are quite unlike, though there’s nothing in that either; but the man looks different altogether—distinctly taller, for instance.”
Thorndyke chuckled. “Good,” said he. “Now look at his feet, as he passes opposite. Did you ever see an instep set at that angle to the sole? And does not your anatomical conscience cry out at a foot of that thickness?”
“Yes, by Jove!” I exclaimed; “there’s room for a double row of metatarsals. It is a fake of some kind, I suppose?”
“Cork ‘raisers’ inside high-heeled boots. Through the glasses I could see that the boots gaped considerably at the instep, as they will when there is a pad inside as well as a foot. But you notice, also, that the man is dressed for height. He has a tall hat, a long coat, and his shoulders are obviously raised by padding. I think there is very little doubt that he is our man.”
“It must be a dull job,” I remarked, “hanging about by the hour to see a man come out of a house.”
“Very,” Thorndyke agreed. “I am quite sorry for the worthy person, especially as we are going to play him a rather shabby trick presently.”
“What are we going to do?” I asked.
“We are going to let him in for one of the longest waits he has ever had, I am afraid. Perhaps I had better give you the particulars of our modus operandi. First, I shall send down to the stand for a hansom, which will draw up opposite the club; and thereupon I have no doubt our friend will hurry down to the cab-stand to be in readiness. At any rate, I shall let him get down to that end of the street before I do anything more. Then I shall take the liberty of putting on your coat and hat and go out to the cab with your suitcase in my hand; I shall stand on the kerb long enough to let our friend get a good view of my bac
k, I shall get into the cab, give the driver the direction through the trap to drive to the hospital, and pay the fare in advance.”
“Why in advance?” I asked.
“So that I shall not have to turn round and show my face when I get out at the hospital entrance. I assume that your friend will follow me in another hansom. Also that he will alight at the outer gates, whereas I shall drive into the courtyard right up to the main entrance, so that he will merely see your hat, coat and suitcase disappear into the building. Then, as I say, he will be in for an interminable vigil. I have a lecture to give this afternoon, and, when I have finished, I shall come away in a black overcoat and tall hat (which are at this moment hanging up in the curator’s room), leaving your friend to wait for the reappearance of your coat, hat and suitcase. I only hope he won’t wait too long.”
“Why?”
“Because he may wear out the patience of my assistant. I have a plain-clothes man keeping a watch from the window above. If your friend sets off in pursuit of your garments, as I anticipate, the plain-clothes man will go straight to the hospital and take up his post in the porter’s lodge, which, as you know, commands the whole street outside the gates.”
“And what have I got to do?”
“First of all, you will put your tooth brush in your pocket—never mind about your razor—and let me try on your hat, in case we have to pad the lining. Then, when you have seen your friend start off in pursuit and are sure the coast is clear, you will make straight for my chambers and wait there for me.”
“And supposing the chappie doesn’t start off in pursuit? Supposing he twigs the imposture?”
“Then the plain-clothes man will go out and threaten to arrest him for loitering with intent to commit a felony. That would soon move him on out of the neighbourhood, and the officer might accompany him some distance and try to get his address. Meanwhile, you would be off to King’s Bench Walk.”
“But wouldn’t it be simpler to run the Johnnie in, in any case? Then we should know all about him.”
“No, it wouldn’t do. The police wouldn’t actually make an arrest without an information; and, if they did proceed, they would want me to appear. That wouldn’t suit me at all. Until we obtain some fresh evidence, I don’t want this man to get any suspicion that the case is being investigated. And now I think the time has come for a move. Let us go to the cloak-room and see if your hat fits me sufficiently well.”
It was not a good fit, being just a shade small; but, as it was a soft felt, this was not a vital defect. The overcoat fitted well enough, though a trifle long in the sleeves, and when Thorndyke was fully arrayed in this borrowed plumage, his back view, so far as I could judge, was indistinguishable from my own. “If you will take out your toothbrush and hand me your suitcase,” said he, “I will send for a hansom, and then we will watch the progress of events from the dining-room window.”
I handed him the green canvas case and we returned to the dining-room and there, when he had ordered the cab, we took up a position at the window, screened from observation by the wire blinds. “Our friend,” said Thorndyke, “was walking towards the right hand end of the street when we saw him last. As the cabstand is at the left hand end, we may hope to look upon his face once again.”
As he spoke, the air was rent by the shriek of the cab-whistle, and the leading hansom began immediately to bear down on the club. It had hardly come to rest at our door when a figure appeared from the opposite direction, advancing at a brisk walk on our side of the road. I recognized him instantly as the man to whom Thorndyke had directed my attention, and watched him closely, as he approached, to see if I could identify him with the man who had shadowed Sylvia and me at the picture gallery; but, though he passed within a few yards of the window, and I felt no doubt that he was the same man, I could trace no definite resemblance. It is true, that while actually passing the club, he averted his face somewhat; but I had a good view of him within an easy distance, and the face that I then saw was certainly not the face of the man at the gallery. The skilfulness of the make-up—assuming it to be really a disguise—was incredible, and I remarked on it to Thorndyke. “Yes,” he agreed, “a really artistic make-up is apt to surprise the uninitiated. And that reminds me that Polton has instructions to make a few trifling alterations in your own appearance.”
I stared at him aghast. “You don’t mean to say,” I exclaimed, “that you contemplate making me up?”
“We won’t discuss the question now,” he replied a little evasively. “You talk it over with Polton. It is time for me to go now, as our quarry has considerately acted up to our expectations. He little knows what confusion of our plans he would have occasioned by simply staying at the other end of the street.”
The spy had, in fact, now halted opposite the cabstand and was apparently making some notes in a pocket-book, facing, meanwhile, in our direction. With a few parting instructions to me, Thorndyke picked up the suitcase and hurried out, and I saw him dart down the steps—with his face turned somewhat to the right—and stand for a few seconds at the edge of the pavement with his back to the cabstand, but in full view, looking at his watch as if considering some appointment. Suddenly he sprang into the cab and, pushing up the trap, gave the driver his instructions and handed up the fare. At the same moment I saw the unknown shadower hail a hansom, and, scrambling to the footboard, give some brief directions to the driver. Then Thorndyke’s cabman touched his horse with the whip, and away he went at a smart trot; but hardly had the cab turned the first corner when the second hansom rattled past the club in hot pursuit.
I was about to turn away from the window when a tall, well-dressed man ran down the steps and immediately signalled to the cabstand with his stick. Thinking it probable that this was the plain-clothes policeman, I stopped to watch; and when I had seen him enter the cab and drive off in the same direction as the other two, I decided that the show was over and that it was time for me to take my departure; which I did, after stuffing a couple of envelopes into the lining of Thorndyke’s hat, to prevent it from slipping down towards my ears.
That my arrival at number 5A, King’s Bench Walk was not quite unexpected I gathered not only from the fact that the “oak” stood wide open, revealing the inner door, but from the instantaneous way in which this latter opened in response to my knock; and something gleeful and triumphant in Mr. Polton’s manner as he invited me to enter, stirred my suspicions and aroused vague forebodings.
He helped me out of my—or rather Thorndyke’s—overcoat, and; having taken the hat from me, peered inquiringly into its interior and fished out the two envelopes, which he politely offered to me. Then, having disposed of his employer’s property, he returned to confront me, and, wrinkling his countenance into a most singular and highly corrugated smile, he opened his mouth and spoke. “So you have come, sir, the Doctor tells me, to take sanctuary for a time with us from the malice of your enemies.”
“I don’t know about that,” I replied, “but there is a cockeyed transformationist who seems to be dodging about after me, and Dr. Thorndyke thinks I had better give him the go-by for the present.”
“And very proper, too, sir. Discretion is the better part of valour, as the proverb says—though I really could never see that it is any part at all. But no doubt our forefathers, who made the proverb, knew best. Did the Doctor mention that he had given me certain instructions about you?”
“He said that I was to talk over some question with you, but I didn’t quite follow him. What were his instructions?”
Polton rubbed his hands, and his face became more crinkly than ever. “The Doctor instructed me,” he replied, looking at me hungrily and obviously making a mental inventory of my features, “to effect certain slight alterations in your outward personality.”
“Oh, did he,” said I. “And what does he mean by that? Does he mean that you are to make me up as an old woman or a nigger minstrel?”
“Not at all, sir,” replied Polton. “Neither of those characters wo
uld be at all suitable. They would occasion remark, which it is our object to avoid; and as to a negro minstrel, his presence in chambers would undoubtedly be objected to by the benchers.”
“But,” I expostulated,” why any disguise at all, if I am to be boxed up in these chambers? The chappie isn’t likely to come and look through the keyhole.”
“He wouldn’t see anything if he did,” said Polton. “I fitted these locks. But, you see, sir, many strangers come to these chambers, and then, too, you might like to take a little exercise about the inn or the gardens. That would probably be quite safe if you were unrecognizable, but otherwise, I should think, inadmissible. And really, sir,” he continued persuasively, “if you do a thing at all you may as well do it thoroughly. The Doctor wishes you to disappear; then disappear completely. Don’t do it by halves.”
I could not but admit to myself that this was reasonable advice. Nevertheless, I grumbled a little sulkily. “It seems to me that Dr. Thorndyke is making a lot of unnecessary fuss. It is absurd for an able-bodied man to be sneaking into a hiding-place and disguising himself like a runaway thief.”
“I can offer no opinion on that, sir,” said Polton; “but you’re wrong about the Doctor. He is a cautious man but he is not nervous or fussy. You would be wise to act as he thinks best, I am sure.”
“Very well,” I said; “I won’t be obstinate. When do you want to begin on me?”
“I should like,” replied Polton, brightening up wonderfully at my sudden submission, “to have you ready for inspection by the time that the Doctor returns. If agreeable to you, sir, I would proceed immediately.”
The First R. Austin Freeman Megapack: 27 Mystery Tales of Dr. Thorndyke & Others Page 155