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

by R. Austin Freeman

  “Now, if you were to embark on a suit for the annulment of your marriage, the plea of fraud, on which you would base your claim, would have to be supported by evidence which would conflict with that given by you at the inquest. Your position would be a very uncomfortable one, and it would be made more so by the fact that your evidence was in agreement with Mr. Otway’s. When two witnesses agree in a departure from the actual facts known to them, a suspicion of collusion is apt to be raised; and collusion again suggests purpose and motive. I am afraid, Mrs. Otway, that the Devil’s Advocate is making out a diabolically complete case. But that, you know, is his business. The conclusion is that a malignant fate has woven around you a mesh of circumstances from which there is no escape, and that the less you struggle the less irksome will be your bonds.”

  To this conclusion, unsatisfactory as it was, I assented with a readiness born not only of conviction but of a certain amount of alarm. I had heard my father speak with admiration of Dr. Thorndyke’s amazing power of analysing evidence and extracting its essentials, and I now began to wonder how much of the actual truth he had extracted from the evidence at the inquest, elucidated by my narrative. His warning as to a possible suspicion of collusion with “a purpose and a motive” in the back ground, set me speculating as to whether he, himself, entertained such a suspicion; and his next question was by no means reassuring on this point.

  “You spoke,” said he, “of having decided not to live with Mr. Otway, and of having communicated your intention to him. Do I understand that he assents to a separation?”

  “Yes. He sees that the position would be quite impossible.”

  “Is your arrangement with him merely a verbal one or has it been placed on a regular footing by a document of some kind?”

  “Mr. Otway has executed a deed of separation, which I think is quite regular. But I had better let you see it.”

  With some trepidation, I produced the deed and nervously watched him as he read it through, which he did with an inscrutable expression, and—as it seemed to me—a horrible appearance of seeing through it to the rather questionable circumstances that had brought it into existence.

  “Yes,” he said, as he handed it back to me; “it is quite regular. You may congratulate yourself on finding Mr. Otway so compliant. It is more than one would have expected of him.”

  “He could hardly have done otherwise,” I answered hastily. “We couldn’t possibly have lived together after what had happened. Still, I am glad he took the reasonable view. It leaves me free to make my own arrangements for my future.”

  “And what arrangements do you propose—if your legal adviser is not too inquisitive.”

  “Not at all. I was going to ask you to advise me. I don’t think there will be enough to support me, and, of course, I can’t accept any help from Mr. Otway. I shall have to earn my living in some way.”

  “You could compel Mr. Otway to support you, but I appreciate your unwillingness to accept an allowance and thereby recognise the relationship. Have you any means of livelihood in your mind?”

  I hesitated a little shyly. For I had; but my plan might sound rather an odd one, at least to a stranger.

  I thought,” said I, at length, “of trying to get a living by doing what I have been accustomed to do as a hobby—by making simple jewellery and small, ornamental metal objects. I am afraid you will look on it as rather a wild scheme.”

  “No,” he answered. “It is an unconventional scheme, but not in any way a wild one. I think we often appreciate insufficiently the wisdom of the artist’s choice of his profession. In choosing a means of livelihood we are choosing the way in which we shall spend the greater part of our lives. We have something to sell—the bulk of our waking lives; and we are apt to think too much of its selling price—its value to the purchaser—and not enough of its value to ourselves. A man, such as a navvy, a miner, a bank-clerk or a factory hand, barters for the means of subsistence so many hours a day spent in doing something that he does not want to do. He sells the best part of his life. But the artist or craftsman makes a much better bargain, for he contrives to obtain a subsistence by doing what he enjoys doing and what he would elect to do for his own satisfaction. He sells only the by-products of his life; the whole of that life he retains for his own use, to be spent as he would, in any case, wish to spend it. But there is an inevitable proviso; his acceptable occupation must really yield a subsistence. His wares must be of value to the purchaser, and he must be able to find a market. Do you think you could satisfy those conditions?”

  “I think I could make the things pretty well, but, as to selling them, that is a different matter. I have to find that out. May I show you some of my work?”

  “I should like very much to see some of it,” he replied.

  “I will fetch a few pieces. And meanwhile, that clock on the mantelpiece is partly my work. My father made the clock, itself; but I made the dial, the hands and the case.”

  Dr. Thorndyke rose, and, stepping over to the mantel piece, looked at the work with keen interest. It was a little bracket-clock with a bronze dial, a silver circle for the figures, silver-gilt hands and a simple wooden case decorated with gesso. Leaving my visitor to inspect it, I went away and collected a few samples of my work in metal; a bronze candlestick, an enamelled silver belt-buckle, a gold pendant set with opals, and one or two silver spoons; all of which Dr. Thorndyke examined with that friendly interest—unmistakeable to the artist or craftsman—that evinces some knowledge of and liking for the thing examined.

  “Well,” he said, as he laid down the last of the spoons, “these things answer the first question. They are quite workmanlike, and they are attractive and tastefully designed. The next question is the economic one. Could you sell them? and if so, would they realize a price that would furnish a reasonable livelihood? You would have to compete with commercial products made in large numbers by cheap processes. Your hammered, embossed and chased work would compete with work stamped from steel dies or with comparatively rough castings. Of course, your work is infinitely better value; but this is a commercial age, and buyers are bad judges. And then you would have to sell to dealers who would demand not less than fifty per cent profit, which, I am afraid, would leave you a pitiable, small return for your labour and skill.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “That is all quite true. But still, I think I will try. The work would be interesting and pleasant, and, as you implied just now, an artist cannot expect to be paid as much for doing what he likes doing as another man receives for doing what he dislikes. Pleasant work is, to some extent at least, its own reward; and if my work doesn’t yield enough to live on, I shall have to try something else. But I don’t suppose I shall be absolutely without means when my father’s estate has been wound up.”

  “Do you think of continuing to live here?” Dr. Thorndyke asked.

  “No. As soon as everything is settled, I propose to go to London. It will be much easier—or, at least, less difficult—to dispose of my work there.”

  “Undoubtedly. And have you any definite arrangements in your mind—where and how you are going to live, for instance?

  “None whatever, at present.”

  “I ask because I happen to know of a place where you could put up, at least temporarily; where you would be comfortably lodged, well fed and cared for, and where you could pursue your labours under good working conditions and at small expense. There is only one drawback, but you may consider that a fatal one. It is in the immediate neighbourhood of Ratcliff Highway—or, as it has been renamed, St. George’s Street.”

  “Is that a very dreadful place?

  It is far from being an aristocratic locality. But let me describe the establishment. It is conducted by a Miss Polton, who is the sister of my laboratory assistant—a most expert and talented mechanician. Miss Polton was at one time a nurse; but when her brother entered my employment, he was able to help her to set up in Wellclose Square, Ratcliff, a boarding-house for mercantile marine officers. At the same
time, she, being like her brother, a highly-capable, ingenious person, got herself a hand-loom and took up weaving as a hobby. But since then times have changed. Sailing ships have to a great extent disappeared, and Miss Polton’s clients with them, while the hobby of making excellent cloth has turned out quite a profitable one. So Miss Polton plies her shuttle industriously, and, in the place of the merchant seamen, has collected a little family of women who also work at handicrafts for their living. I believe they form quite a happy little community, and, of course, they are able to assist one another in disposing of their wares. So that is the position. I know that Miss Polton has room for another boarder, for it is quite a large house—Wellclose Square was once the abode of well-to-do shipowners and retired sea-captains—and I am sure she would welcome another novice to her community. The drawback, as I have said, is the neighbourhood, which is—to put it bluntly—just a trifle squalid.”

  “I don’t see that the neighbourhood matters,” said I; “and in every other respect it sounds like the very thing I want.”

  “I think you would be quite well-advised to give it a trial. You would be among friends and fellow-workers, and, if you found that the neighbourhood was too much for you, you would be in London and could seek a new residence at your leisure. I will write the address on one of my cards, and if on reflection you decide to give Ratcliff a trial, you can write to Miss Polton and me at the same time.”

  He wrote the address, and, handing me the card, stood up and glanced at his watch.

  “How long will it take me to walk to the station?” he asked.

  “Less than twenty minutes.”

  “I have half an hour, so I can walk easily. Good-bye, Mrs. Otway. I wish I could have given you a better account of your position. But I can only advise you to make the best of a bad bargain and keep your own counsel.”

  “You have been most kind, Dr. Thorndyke,” I said, earnestly, “in giving me so much time and patient attention. I don’t know how I can thank you.”

  “I will tell you,” said he. “By keeping a good heart and letting me know how your affairs progress.”

  He shook my hand heartily, and, when I had let him out, strode down the garden path, the very personification of manly dignity, alertness and vigour. At the gate he turned to raise his hat, with a smile of friendly farewell; and I closed the door and turned back into the house, feeling, for the first time since my father’s death, that I was not alone in the world, but that, if the need should arise, the strength of this strong, commanding man was at my call.

  The short remainder of my life at Maidstone I shall pass over briefly. It comes back to me in scenes like those of a play, separate but related. I see the interior of the parish church, noble, spacious, cathedral-like; I hear the voice. of the clergyman reciting reverently those flowers of ancient poetry rendered into perfect English speech that usher the departed into the realms of silence with so gracious a dignity; I see the flower-strewn coffin sink into the grave wherein sleeps my unremembered mother, while the russet-sailed barges glide past the churchyard on the placid river below towards the mills at Tovil. And so farewell for ever to the best of fathers and the kindest, most lovable of friends.

  These closing weeks, in which I wound up my old life and made ready for the new, were full of bustle and unrest. I had written to Miss Polton and Dr. Thorndyke, and from the former had received a kindly letter assuring me of the warmest welcome: and now I was busily collecting my tools and workshop appliances and packing them into travelling boxes to be dispatched with my heavier luggage. There was the furniture to be stored or set aside for sale, the servants to be placed in new situations, and various business to be transacted with Mr. Jackson, who, indeed, relieved me of all that lay within his powers.

  Then there was Mr. Otway, from whom I received an abject letter and with whom I must needs have a rather distressing interview. He was really horrified at my proposed mode of life (I suspect he had never done a stroke of manual work in his life), and even more so at my proposed place of residence; and was, I believe, sincerely distressed at my firm refusal to permit him to make me an allowance. Indeed, the devotion which he professed for me, little as I wanted it, seemed to be as real as was possible in the case of a man so self-centred and so callously egoistic. But the very sight of him hardened my heart and lighted up afresh my indignation at the havoc that he had wrought in my life. What I had agreed to do, I did; but I made no hair’s breadth of concession. I gave him my future address, and agreed to his addressing letters there; but I refused resolutely to receive any visits from him, or even to enter into any correspondence other than that which circumstances might render necessary.

  And now the last day has come; the day of final parting. I see myself wandering through the empty house, stripped of all but the barest necessaries and filled with new and strange echoes; the van drawn up at the gate to take away the last of the furniture, and the tearful Jessie carrying my two little portmanteaux down the path to the porter’s barrow. I see her return, wiping her eyes and gazing at me in dumb appeal, and, with a sudden impulse of tenderness, I kiss her and stroke her hair; whereupon she bursts into tears and throws herself sobbing on to my breast.

  It was hard to close the old life, which had been so sweet and peaceful, so full and satisfying; to bid farewell to the beautiful old town which was the only place I had known and which I had loved so well. As I took my way through the streets, attaché-case in hand, all my old friends seemed to look on me reproachfully and call on me to stay. The quaint plaster-fronted house in Week Street, the venerable medieval pile at the corner of Gabriel’s Hill, the grinning masks on the corbels of the old house-fronts of Middle Row; all the old familiar landmarks, had suddenly grown dear and precious, and each exacted its twinge of regret as I looked my last on it. On the bridge I halted to survey the upper river, with the church and the Old Palace, both embowered in trees and brooding over the quiet water. Often as I had looked upon that view, it had never seemed to me so pleasant and desirable as now. And with this last impression—to be recalled how often in the troubled future!—I turned away and headed resolutely for the station.

  HELEN VARDON’S CONFESSION (1922) [part 2]

  BOOK II

  Romance

  CHAPTER XI

  A Harbour of Refuge

  It was the cabman who first made it clear to me that my town address was somewhat out of the common. He had stowed my two portmanteaux on the roof (it was a four-wheeled cab), and, descending to hold the door open for me to enter, shut it after me with a bang and waited while I stated my destination.

  “I beg your pardon, Miss,” he said, incredulously; “did you say Wellclose Square?”

  “Yes. Number sixty-nine.”

  Again he regarded me with wrinkled brows. “That won’t be Wellclose Square down by the Docks?” he suggested.

  “I don’t know if it s near the Docks’ I replied, “but it isn’t far from Ratcliff Highway.”

  “That’s the place, sure enough,” said he. “Number sixty-nine, Well, I’m jiggered.” With this he turned and slowly climbed to the box, looking in at me through the front window as he mounted; and even when he had taken his seat and gathered up the reins, he took yet another confirmatory glance over his shoulder before starting. These mysterious proceedings occasioned me some surprise, not entirely unmixed with anxiety. Dr. Thorndyke had admitted that the neighbourhood was squalid, and the question arose, How squalid was it? The first part of the journey, through Eastcheap and Great Tower Street, was rather reassuring; and as we crossed Tower Hill and the grey pile of ancient buildings loomed up above the trees, I was quite pleasantly impressed. But then came a change for the worse. Long streets of characterless houses, all of a dingy, grey colour—the colour of all-pervading dirt—and growing greyer and dingier as we proceeded; populated by men and women, and especially children, of the same cobwebby tint, with something foreign and unfamiliar in their aspect and manners—a deficiency of artificial head covering with a remarkable
profusion of the natural, and a tendency to sit about on doorsteps; these, with a general outbreak on the shop signs of Wowskys, Minskys, Stems and Popoffs, were the features of the neighbourhood that chiefly attracted my attention as the cab rattled eastward. But there was not much time for extended observation, for I had barely noted these appearances when we turned into a short side-street and emerged into a square, the dingyness of which was somewhat relieved by a group of faded trees in the central enclosure.

  Round the square the cab trundled slowly until it drew up opposite a tall house of the Georgian type, with white window frames and a green door. As the cab stopped, the green door opened and a small elderly lady came forth, while three younger women lurked in the background. Escaping from the cab, I advanced to meet the elderly lady, who received me with a singularly pleasant smile and a few quietly-spoken words of welcome; a proceeding that was observed with furtive interest by the cabman as he transferred my portmanteaux from the cab-roof to the pavement and thence to the hall; nor did his curious observation of me cease until it was brought to an end by actual invisibility, for, as the cab moved out of the square, I saw his face still turned towards me over the roof, with the same I expression of puzzled surprise.

  “You would like to see your room, I expect,” said the elderly lady whom I had correctly assumed to be Miss Polton; “then we will have tea and talk over your arrangements.” She moved towards the stairs (up which I had just seen one of the young women hopping with surprising agility, with one of my portmanteaux in either hand), and conducted me to a room on the second floor, where the portmanteaux had been duly deposited, though the bearer had vanished.

  “It’s rather bare,” said Miss Polton, “but you can have some pictures and ornaments if you like. My young ladies usually prefer to have their own things and arrange them in their own way. Your workroom is downstairs. I consulted my brother about it, and he said he thought you would like a room with a stone floor if you were going to do hammered work and use a furnace. So, as I had one with quite a good light, I have kept it for you—that is, of course, if you like it.”