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

by R. Austin Freeman

  “And what happened next?”

  “The next development was a letter from Father Humperdinck asking if I could give him Mr. Reinhardt’s address. Of course I could not, but I wrote to M. Desire asking him if he could give it to me. Desire replied that he did not, at the moment, know where Mr. Reinhardt was, but would, if desired, take charge of any communications and forward them at the first opportunity. This statement may or may not have been true, but I don’t think we shall get any more information out of Desire. He is Reinhardt’s agent and will act on his instructions. If Reinhardt has told him not to give anyone his address, naturally he won’t give it. So there the matter ends, so far as I am concerned.”

  “Did Vitalis make no suggestion as to altering his will?” Father Humperdinck enquired.

  “None whatever. Nothing was said about the will. But,” Mr. Marchmont added, after a cogitative pause, “we must remember that he has another man of business now. There is no saying what he may have done through M. Desire.”

  Father Humperdinck nodded gloomily, and Thorndyke addressing the solicitor, asked: “And that is all you have to tell us?”

  “Yes. And I’m not sure that it is not a good deal more than I ought to have told you. It is Father Humperdinck’s turn now.”

  The Jesuit acknowledged the invitation to resume his narrative by a stiff bow and then proceeded: “You can now see, sir, that what I said is perfectly correct. The conduct of my friend Vitalis shows a sudden and unaccountable change. It is quite inconsistent with his habits and his way of thinking. And the change is, as I say, so sudden. One day he is coming with the greatest haste to the bedside of his sick friend, Brother Bartholomew, the next he is making arrangements for a life of selfish pleasure, utterly indifferent as to whether that friend is alive or dead. As a matter of fact, the good brother passed away to his reward the day after Vitalis should have arrived, without even a message from his old friend. But now I return to my story.

  “When Vitalis failed to appear, and I could get no news of him, I became very anxious; and, as it happened that the business of our Society called me to England, I determined to inquire into the matter. Circumstances compelled me to travel by way of Boulogne and cross to Folkestone. I say ‘circumstances,’ but I should rather say that I was guided that way by the hand of Providence, for, in the train that brought me from Folkestone to London, I had a most astonishing experience. In the carriage, alone with me, there travelled a young man, a very strange young man indeed. He was a very large man—or, I should say, very high—and in appearance rather fierce and wild. His clothes were good, but they were disordered and stained with mud, as if he had been drunk at night and had rolled in the gutter. And this, I think, was the case, for, soon after we had started, he began to turn out his pockets on the seat of the carriage, as if to see whether he had lost anything during his debauch. And then it was that I saw a most astonishing thing. Among the objects that this man took from his pockets and laid on the seat, was the reliquary that I had given so many years ago to Vitalis.

  “I could not mistake it. Once it had been mine, and I had been accustomed to see it almost daily since. Moreover the young man had the effrontery to pass it to me that I might examine it, and I found on it the very letters which I, myself, had caused to be engraved on it. When I asked him where he had obtained it, he told me that he had picked it up at Hampstead, and he professed not to know what it was. But his answers were very evasive and I did not believe him.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Mr. Marchmont, “there was nothing improbable in his statement. Mr. Reinhardt had been at Hampstead and might have dropped it.”

  “Possibly. But he would have taken measures to recover it. He would not have left England until he had found it. He was a rich man, and he would have offered a large reward for this his most prized possession.”

  “You say,” said Thorndyke, “that he habitually carried this reliquary on his person. Can you tell us how he carried or wore it?”

  “That,” replied Father Humperdinck, “was what I was coming to. The reliquary was a small gold object with a ring at each end. It was meant I suppose, to be worn round the wrist, or perhaps the neck, by means of a cord or chain attached to the two rings, or to be inserted into a chaplet of devotional beads. But this was not the way in which Vitalis carried it. He possessed a small and very beautiful crucifix which he set great store by, because it was given to him by one of the fathers when he left school, and which he used to wear suspended from his neck by a green silk cord. Now, when I gave him the reliquary, he caused a goldsmith to link one of its rings to the ring of the crucifix and he fastened the silk cord to the other ring, and so suspended both the reliquary and the crucifix from his neck.”

  “Did he wear them outside his clothing so that they were visible?” Thorndyke asked.

  “Yes, outside his waistcoat, so that they were not only visible but very conspicuous when his coat was unbuttoned. It was, of course, very unsuitable to the dress of a lay brother, and I spoke to him about it several times. But he was sometimes rather self-willed, as you may judge by his refusal to settle an endowment on the Society, and, naturally, as he was not professed, I had no authority over him. But I shall return presently to the reliquary. Now I continue about this young man.

  “When I had heard his explanation, and decided that he was telling me lies, I made a simple pretext to discover his name and place of abode. With the same effrontery, he gave me his card, which I have here, and which, you will see, is stained with mud, owing, no doubt, to those wallowings in the mire of which I have spoken.” He drew the card from his pocket-book and handed it to Thorndyke, who read it gravely, and, pushing it across the table to me, said, without moving a muscle of his face: “You had better copy it into your notes, Mr. Howard, so that we may have the record complete.”

  I accordingly copied out my own name and address with due solemnity and a growing enjoyment of the situation, and then returned the card to Father Humperdinck, who pocketed it carefully and resumed: “Having the name and address of this young man, I telegraphed immediately to a private detective bureau in Paris, asking to have sent to me, if possible, a certain M. Foucault, who makes a speciality of following and watching suspected persons. This Foucault is a man of extraordinary talent. His power of disguising himself is beyond belief and his patience is inexhaustible. Fortunately he was disengaged and came to me without delay, and, when I had given him the name and address of this young man, Jardine, and described him from my recollection of him, he set a watch on the house and found that the man was really living there, as he had said, and that he made a daily journey to the hospital of St. Margaret’s, where he seemed to have some business, as he usually stayed there until evening.”

  “St. Margaret’s!” exclaimed Marchmont. “Why that is your hospital, Thorndyke. Do you happen to know this man Jardine?”

  “There is, or was, a student of that name, who qualified some little time ago, and who is probably the man Father Humperdinck is referring to. A tall man; quite as tall, I should say, as my friend here, Mr. Howard.”

  “I should say,” said Father Humperdinck, “that the man, Jardine, is taller, decidedly taller. I watched him as I walked behind him up the platform at Charing Cross, and M. Foucault has shown him to me since. But that matters not. Have you seen the man, Jardine, lately at the hospital?”

  “Not very lately,” Thorndyke replied. “I saw him there nearly a fortnight ago, but that, I think, was the last time.”

  “Ah!” exclaimed Humperdinck. “Exactly. But I shall continue my story. For some time M. Foucault kept a close watch on this man, but discovered nothing fresh. He went to the hospital daily, he came home, and he stayed indoors the whole evening. But, at last, there came a new discovery.

  “One morning M. Foucault saw the man, Jardine, come out of his house, dressed more carefully than usual. From his house, Foucault followed him to a picture gallery in Leicester Square and went in after him; and there he saw him meet a female, evidently
by a previous assignation. AND,” Father Humperdinck continued, slapping the table to emphasize the climax of his story, “From—the—neck—of—that—female—was—hanging—Vitalis—Reinhardt’s—crucifix!”

  Having made this thrilling communication, our reverend client leaned back to watch its effect on his audience. I am afraid he must have been a little disappointed, for Thorndyke was habitually impassive in his exterior, and, as for Jervis and me, we were fully occupied in maintaining a decent and befitting gravity. But Marchmont—the only person present who was not already acquainted with the incident—saved the situation by exclaiming: “Very remarkable! Very remarkable indeed!”

  “It is more than remarkable,” said Father Humperdinck. “It is highly suspicious. You observe that the reliquary and the crucifix had been linked together. Now they are separated, and since both the rings of the reliquary were unbroken, it follows that the ring of the crucifix must have been cut through and a new one made, by which to suspend it.”

  “I don’t see anything particularly suspicious in that,” said Marchmont. “If Jardine found the two articles fixed together, and—having failed to discover the owner—wished to give the crucifix to his friend, it is not unnatural that he should have separated them.”

  “I do not believe that he found them,” Father Humperdinck replied doggedly; “but I shall continue my story and you will see. There is not much more to tell.

  “It seems that the man, Jardine, suspected Foucault of watching him, for presently he left the gallery in company with the female, and, after being followed for some distance, he managed to escape. As soon as Foucault found that he had lost him, he went to Jardine’s house and waited about the neighbourhood, and an hour or two later he had the good fortune to see him coming from Hampstead towards Highgate, in company with another female. He followed them until they entered a narrow passage or lane that leads up the hill, and when they had gone up this some distance, he followed, but could not get near enough to hear what they were saying.

  “And now he had a most strange and terrible experience. For some time past he had felt a suspicion that some person—some accomplice of Jardine’s perhaps—was following and watching him; and now he had proof of it. At the top of the lane, Jardine stopped to talk to the female, and Foucault crept on tiptoe towards him; and while he was doing so, he heard someone approaching stealthily up the lane, behind him. Suddenly, Jardine began to return down the lane. As it was not convenient for Foucault to meet him there, he also turned and walked back; and then he heard a sound as if someone were climbing the high wooden fence that enclosed the lane. Then Jardine began to run, and Foucault was compelled also to run but he would have been overtaken if it had not happened that Jardine fell down.

  “Now, just as he heard Jardine fall, he came to a broken place in the fence, and it occurred to him to creep through the hole and hide while Jardine passed. He accordingly began to do so, but no sooner had he thrust his head through the hole than some unseen ruffian dealt him a violent blow which rendered him instantly insensible. When he recovered his senses, he found himself lying in a churchyard which adjoins the lane, but Jardine and the other ruffian were, of course, nowhere to be seen.

  “And now I come to the last incident that I have to relate. The assault took place on a Saturday; on the Sunday M. Foucault was somewhat indisposed and unable to go out, but early on Monday he resumed his watch on Jardine’s house. It was nearly noon when Jardine came out, dressed as if for travelling and carrying a valise. He went first to a house near Piccadilly and from thence to the hospital in a cab. Foucault followed in another cab and saw him go into the hospital and waited for him to come out. But he never came. Foucault waited until midnight, but he did not come out. He had vanished.”

  “He had probably come out by a back exit and gone home,” said Marchmont.

  “Not so,” replied Humperdinck. “The next day Foucault watched Jardine’s house, but he did not come there. Then he made enquiries; but Jardine is not there, and the landlady does not know where he is. Also the porter at the hospital knows nothing and is not at all polite. The man Jardine has disappeared as if he had never been.”

  “That really is rather queer,” said Marchmont. “It is a pity that you did not give me all these particulars at first. However, that can’t be helped now. Is this all that you have to tell us?”

  “It is all; unless there is anything that you wish to ask me.”

  “I think,” said Thorndyke, “that it would be well for us to have a description of Mr. Reinhardt; and, as we have to trace him, if possible, a photograph would be exceedingly useful.”

  “I have not a photograph with me,” said Father Humperdinck, “but I will obtain one and send it to you. Meanwhile I will tell you what my friend Vitalis is like. He is sixty-two years of age, spare, upright, rather tall—his height is a hundred and seventy-three centimetres—”

  “Roughly five feet nine,” interposed Thorndyke.

  “His hair is nearly white, he is, of course, clean shaven, he has grey eyes, a straight nose, not very prominent, and remarkably good teeth for his age, which he shows somewhat when he talks. I think he is a little vain about his teeth and he well may be, for there are not many men of sixty-two who have not a single false tooth, nor even one that has been stopped by the dentist. As to his clothing, he wears the ordinary dress of a lay brother, which you are probably familiar with, and he nearly always wears gloves, even indoors.”

  “Is there any reason for his wearing gloves?” Thorndyke asked.

  “Not now. The habit began when he had some affliction of the skin, which made it necessary for him to keep his hands covered with gloves which contained some ointment or dressing, and afterwards for a time to conceal the disagreeable appearance of the skin. The habit having been once formed, he continued it, saying that his hands were more comfortable covered up than when exposed to the air.”

  “Was he dressed in this fashion when he called at your office, Marchmont?” asked Thorndyke.

  “Yes. Even to the gloves. I noticed, with some surprise, that he did not take them off even when he wrote and signed the note of which I told you.”

  “Was he then wearing the reliquary and crucifix as Father Humperdinck has described, on the front of his waistcoat?”

  “He may have been, but I didn’t notice them, as I fancy I should have done if they had been there.”

  “And you have nothing more to tell us, Father Humperdinck, as to your friend’s personal appearance?”

  “No. I will send you the photograph and write to you if I think of anything that I have forgotten. And now, perhaps you can tell me if you think that you will be able to answer those questions that Mr. Marchmont put to you.”

  “I cannot, of course, answer them now,” replied Thorndyke. “The facts that you have given us will have to be considered and compared, and certain enquiries will have to be made. Are you staying long in England?”

  “I shall be here for at least a month; and I may as well leave you my address, although Mr. Marchmont has it.”

  “In the course of a month,” Thorndyke said, as he took the proffered card, “I think I may promise you that we shall have settled definitely whether your friend is alive or dead; and if we find that he is alive, we shall, no doubt, be able to ascertain his whereabouts.”

  “That is very satisfactory,” said Father Humperdinck. “I hope you shall be able to make good your promise.”

  With this he rose, and, having shaken hands stiffly with Thorndyke, bestowed on Jervis and me a ceremonious bow and moved towards the door. I thought that Marchmont looked a little wistful, as if he would have liked to stay and have a few words with us alone; indeed, he lingered for a moment or two after the door was open, but then, apparently altering his mind, he wished us “good-night” and followed his client.

  A SILENT WITNESS (1914) [part 3]

  CHAPTER XVII

  THE PALIMPSEST

  It was getting late when our friends left us, but nevertheless,
as soon as they were gone, we all drew our chairs up to the fire with the obvious intention of discussing the situation and began, with one accord, to fill our pipes. Jervis was the first to get his tobacco alight, and, having emitted a voluminous preliminary puff, he proceeded to open the debate. “That man, Jardine, seems to be a pretty desperate character. Just think of his actually wallowing in the mire—not merely rolling, mind you, but wallowing—and of his repulsive habit of consorting with females; one after the other, too, in rapid succession. It’s a shocking instance of depravity.”

  “Our reverend friend,” said Thorndyke, “reaches his conclusions by a rather short route—in some cases, at least; in others, his methods seem a little indirect and roundabout.”

  “Yes,” agreed Jervis, “he’s a devil at guessing. But he didn’t get much food for the imagination out of the man, Thorndyke. Why were you so extraordinarily secretive? With what he told you and what you knew before, you could surely have suggested a line of inquiry. Why didn’t you?”

  “Principally because of the man’s personality. I could not have answered his questions; I could, only have suggested one or two highly probable solutions of the problem that he offered and partial solutions at that. But I am not much addicted to giving partial solutions—to handing over the raw material of a promising inquiry. Certainly, not to a man like this, who seems incapable of a straight forward action.”

  “The reverend father,” said Jervis, “does certainly seem to be a rather unnecessarily downy bird. And he doesn’t seem to have got much by his excessive artfulness, after all.”

  “No,” agreed Thorndyke; “nothing whatever. Quite the contrary, in fact. Look at his ridiculous conduct in respect of ‘the man Jardine’. I don’t complain of his having taken the precaution to obtain that malefactor’s address; but, when he had got it, if he had not been tortuous, so eager to be cunning; if, in short, he had behaved like an ordinary sensible man, he would have got, at once, all the information that Jardine had to give. He could have called on Jardine, written to him, employed a lawyer or applied to the police. Either of these simple and obvious plans would have been successful; instead of which, he must needs go to the trouble and expense of engaging this absurd spy.”