The Hunter Hunted
The omnibus of those days was a leisurely vehicle. Its ordinary pace was
a rather sluggish trot, and in a thickly populated thoroughfare its
speed was further reduced by frequent stoppages. Bearing these facts in
mind, I gave an occasional backward glance as we jogged northward,
though my attention soon began to wander from the rather remote
possibility of pursuit to the incidents of our late exploration.
It had not been difficult to see that Thorndyke was very well pleased
with the results of our search, but excepting the letter--which
undoubtedly opened up a channel for further inquiry and possible
identification--I could not perceive that any of the traces that we had
found justified his satisfaction. There were the spectacles, for
instance. They were almost certainly the pair worn by Mr. Graves. But
what then? It was exceedingly improbable that we should be able to
discover the maker of them, and if we were, it was still more improbable
that he would be able to give us any information that would help us.
Spectacle-makers are not usually on confidential terms with their
customers.
As to the other objects, I could make nothing of them. The little sticks
of reed evidently had some use that was known to Thorndyke and
furnished, by inference, some kind of information about Weiss, Graves,
or Mrs. Schallibaum. But I had never seen anything like them before and
they conveyed nothing whatever to me. Then the bottle that had seemed so
significant to Thorndyke was to me quite uninforming. It did, indeed,
suggest that some member of the household might be connected with the
stage, but it gave no hint as to which one. Certainly that person was
not Mr. Weiss, whose appearance was as remote from that of an actor as
could well be imagined. At any rate, the bottle and its label gave me no
more useful hint than it might be worth while to call on Mr. Fox and
make inquiries; and something told me very emphatically that this was
not what it had conveyed to Thorndyke.
These reflections occupied me until the omnibus, having rumbled over
London Bridge and up King William Street, joined the converging streams
of traffic at the Mansion House. Here I got down and changed to an
omnibus bound for Kensington; on which I travelled westward pleasantly
enough, looking down into the teeming streets and whiling away the time
by meditating upon the very agreeable afternoon that I promised myself,
and considering how far my new arrangement with Thorndyke would justify
me in entering into certain domestic engagements of a highly interesting
kind.
What might have happened under other circumstances it is impossible to
tell and useless to speculate; the fact is that my journey ended in a
disappointment. I arrived, all agog, at the familiar house in Endsley
Gardens only to be told by a sympathetic housemaid that the family was
out; that Mrs. Hornby had gone into the country and would not be home
until night, and--which mattered a good deal more to me--that her niece,
Miss Juliet Gibson, had accompanied her.
Now a man who drops into lunch without announcing his intention or
previously ascertaining those of his friends has no right to quarrel
with fate if he finds an empty house. Thus philosophically I reflected
as I turned away from the house in profound discontent, demanding of the
universe in general why Mrs. Hornby need have perversely chosen my first
free day to go gadding into the country, and above all, why she must
needs spirit away the fair Juliet. This was the crowning misfortune (for
I could have endured the absence of the elder lady with commendable
fortitude), and since I could not immediately return to the Temple it
left me a mere waif and stray for the time being.
Instinct--of the kind that manifests itself especially about one
o'clock in the afternoon--impelled me in the direction of Brompton Road,
and finally landed me at a table in a large restaurant apparently
adjusted to the needs of ladies who had come from a distance to engage
in the feminine sport of shopping. Here, while waiting for my lunch, I
sat idly scanning the morning paper and wondering what I should do with
the rest of the day; and presently it chanced that my eye caught the
announcement of a matinée at the theatre in Sloane Square. It was quite
a long time since I had been at a theatre, and, as the play--light
comedy--seemed likely to satisfy my not very critical taste, I decided
to devote the afternoon to reviving my acquaintance with the drama.
Accordingly as soon as my lunch was finished, I walked down the Brompton
Road, stepped on to an omnibus, and was duly deposited at the door of
the theatre. A couple of minutes later I found myself occupying an
excellent seat in the second row of the pit, oblivious alike of my
recent disappointment and of Thorndyke's words of warning.
I am not an enthusiastic play-goer. To dramatic performances I am
disposed to assign nothing further than the modest function of
furnishing entertainment. I do not go to a theatre to be instructed or
to have my moral outlook elevated. But, by way of compensation, I am not
difficult to please. To a simple play, adjusted to my primitive taste, I
can bring a certain bucolic appreciation that enables me to extract from
the performance the maximum of enjoyment; and when, on this occasion,
the final curtain fell and the audience rose, I rescued my hat from its
insecure resting-place and turned to go with the feeling that I had
spent a highly agreeable afternoon.
Emerging from the theatre, borne on the outgoing stream, I presently
found myself opposite the door of a tea-shop. Instinct--the five o'clock
instinct this time--guided me in; for we are creatures of habit,
especially of the tea habit. The unoccupied table to which I drifted was
in a shady corner not very far from the pay-desk; and here I had been
seated less than a minute when a lady passed me on her way to the
farther table. The glimpse that I caught of her as she approached--it
was but a glimpse, since she passed behind me--showed that she was
dressed in black, that she wore a beaded veil and hat, and in addition
to the glass of milk and the bun that she carried, she was encumbered by
an umbrella and a small basket, apparently containing some kind of
needlework. I must confess that I gave her very little attention at the
time, being occupied in anxious speculation as to how long it would be
before the fact of my presence would impinge on the consciousness of the
waitress.
The exact time by the clock on the wall was three minutes and a quarter,
at the expiration of which an anaemic young woman sauntered up to the
table and bestowed on me a glance of sullen interrogation, as if mutely
demanding what the devil I wanted. I humbly requested that I might be
provided with a pot of tea; whereupon she turned on her heel (which was
a good deal worn down on the offside) and reported my conduct to a lady
behind a marble-topped counter.
It seemed that the counter lady took a lenient view of the case, for in
less than four minutes the waitress returned and gloomily deposited on
the table before me a tea-pot, a milk-jug, a cup and saucer, a jug of
hot water, and a small pool of milk. Then she once more departed in
dudgeon.
I had just given the tea in the pot a preliminary stir and was about to
pour out the first cup when I felt some one bump lightly against my
chair and heard something rattle on the floor. I turned quickly and
perceived the lady, whom I had seen enter, stooping just behind my
chair. It seemed that having finished her frugal meal she was on her way
out when she had dropped the little basket that I had noticed hanging
from her wrist; which basket had promptly disgorged its entire contents
on the floor.
Now every one must have noticed the demon of agility that seems to enter
into an inanimate object when it is dropped, and the apparently
intelligent malice with which it discovers, and rolls into, the most
inaccessible places. Here was a case in point. This particular basket
had contained materials for Oriental bead-work; and no sooner had it
reached the floor than each item of its contents appeared to become
possessed of a separate and particular devil impelling it to travel at
headlong speed to some remote and unapproachable corner as distant as
possible from its fellows.
As the only man--and almost the only person--near, the duty of
salvage-agent manifestly devolved upon me; and down I went, accordingly,
on my hands and knees, regardless of a nearly new pair of trousers, to
grope under tables, chairs and settles in reach of the scattered
treasure. A ball of the thick thread or twine I recovered from a dark
and dirty corner after a brief interview with the sharp corner of a
settle, and a multitude of the large beads with which this infernal
industry is carried on I gathered from all parts of the compass, coming
forth at length (quadrupedally) with a double handful of the
treasure-trove and a very lively appreciation of the resistant qualities
of a cast-iron table-stand when applied to the human cranium.
The owner of the lost and found property was greatly distressed by the
accident and the trouble it had caused me; in fact she was quite
needlessly agitated about it. The hand which held the basket into which
I poured the rescued trash trembled visibly, and the brief glance that I
bestowed on her as she murmured her thanks and apologies--with a very
slight foreign accent--showed me that she was excessively pale. That
much I could see plainly in spite of the rather dim light in this part
of the shop and the beaded veil that covered her face; and I could also
see that she was a rather remarkable looking woman, with a great mass of
harsh, black hair and very broad black eyebrows that nearly met above
her nose and contrasted strikingly with the dead white of her skin. But,
of course, I did not look at her intently. Having returned her property
and received her acknowledgments, I resumed my seat and left her to go
on her way.
I had once more grasped the handle of the tea-pot when I made a rather
curious discovery. At the bottom of the tea-cup lay a single lump of
sugar. To the majority of persons it would have meant nothing. They
would have assumed that they had dropped it in and forgotten it and
would have proceeded to pour out the tea. But it happened that, at this
time, I did not take sugar in my tea; whence it followed that the lump
had not been put in by me. Assuming, therefore, that it had been
carelessly dropped in by the waitress, I turned it out on the table,
filled the cup, added the milk, and took a tentative draught to test the
temperature.
The cup was yet at my lips when I chanced to look into the mirror that
faced my table. Of course it reflected the part of the shop that was
behind me, including the cashier's desk; at which the owner of the
basket now stood paying for her refreshment. Between her and me was a
gas chandelier which cast its light on my back but full on her face; and
her veil notwithstanding, I could see that she was looking at me
steadily; was, in fact, watching me intently and with a very curious
expression--an expression of expectancy mingled with alarm. But this was
not all. As I returned her intent look--which I could do unobserved,
since my face, reflected in the mirror, was in deep shadow--I suddenly
perceived that that steady gaze engaged her right eye only; the other
eye was looking sharply towards her left shoulder. In short, she had a
divergent squint of the left eye.
I put down my cup with a thrill of amazement and a sudden surging up of
suspicion and alarm. An instant's reflection reminded me that when she
had spoken to me a few moments before, both her eyes had looked into
mine without the slightest trace of a squint. My thoughts flew back to
the lump of sugar, to the unguarded milk-jug and the draught of tea that
I had already swallowed; and, hardly knowing what I intended, I started
to my feet and turned to confront her. But as I rose, she snatched up
her change and darted from the shop. Through the glass door, I saw her
spring on to the foot-board of a passing hansom and give the driver some
direction. I saw the man whip up his horse, and, by the time I reached
the door, the cab was moving off swiftly towards Sloane Street.
I stood irresolute. I had not paid and could not run out of the shop
without making a fuss, and my hat and stick were still on the rail
opposite my seat. The woman ought to be followed, but I had no fancy for
the task. If the tea that I had swallowed was innocuous, no harm was
done and I was rid of my pursuer. So far as I was concerned, the
incident was closed. I went back to my seat, and picking up the lump of
sugar which still lay on the table where I had dropped it, put it
carefully in my pocket. But my appetite for tea was satisfied for the
present. Moreover it was hardly advisable to stay in the shop lest some
fresh spy should come to see how I fared. Accordingly I obtained my
check, handed it in at the cashier's desk and took my departure.
All this time, it will be observed, I had been taking it for granted
that the lady in black had followed me from Kensington to this shop;
that, in fact, she was none other than Mrs. Schallibaum. And, indeed,
the circumstances had rendered the conclusion inevitable. In the very
instant when I had perceived the displacement of the left eye, complete
recognition had come upon me. When I had stood facing the woman, the
brief glance at her face had conveyed to me something dimly reminiscent
of which I had been but half conscious and had instantly forgotten. But
the sight of that characteristic squint had at once revived and
explained it. That the woman was Mrs. Schallibaum I now felt no doubt
whatever.
Nevertheless, the whole affair was profoundly mysterious. As to the
change in the woman's appearance, there was little in that. The coarse,
black hair might be her own, dyed, or it might be a wig. The eyebrows
were made-up; it was a simple enough proceeding and made still more
simple by the beaded veil. But how did she come to be there at all? How
did she happen to be made-up in this fashion at this particular time?
And, above all, how came she to be provided with a lump of what I had
little doubt was poisoned sugar?
I turned over the events of the day, and the more I considered them the
less comprehensible they appeared. No one had followed the omnibus
either on foot or in a vehicle, as far as I could see; and I had kept a
careful look-out, not only at starting but for some considerable time
after. Yet, all the time, Mrs. Schallibaum must have been following.
But how? If she had known that I was intending to travel by the omnibus
she might have gone to meet it and entered before I did. But she could
not have known: and moreover she did not meet the omnibus, for we
watched its approach from some considerable distance. I considered
whether she might not have been concealed in the house and overheard me
mention my destination to Thorndyke. But this failed to explain the
mystery, since I had mentioned no address beyond "Kensington." I had,
indeed, mentioned the name of Mrs. Hornby, but the supposition that my
friends might be known by name to Mrs. Schallibaum, or even that she
might have looked the name up in the directory, presented a probability
too remote to be worth entertaining.
But, if I reached no satisfactory conclusion, my cogitations had one
useful effect; they occupied my mind to the exclusion of that
unfortunate draught of tea. Not that I had been seriously uneasy after
the first shock. The quantity that I had swallowed was not large--the
tea being hotter than I cared for--and I remembered that, when I had
thrown out the lump of sugar, I had turned the cup upside down on the
table; so there could have been nothing solid left in it. And the lump
of sugar was in itself reassuring, for it certainly would not have been
used in conjunction with any less conspicuous but more incriminating
form of poison. That lump of sugar was now in my pocket, reserved for
careful examination at my leisure; and I reflected with a faint grin
that it would be a little disconcerting if it should turn out to
contain nothing but sugar after all.
On leaving the tea-shop, I walked up Sloane Street with the intention of
doing what I ought to have done earlier in the day. I was going to make
perfectly sure that no spy was dogging my footsteps. But for my
ridiculous confidence I could have done so quite easily before going to
Endsley Gardens; and now, made wiser by a startling experience, I
proceeded with systematic care. It was still broad daylight--for the
lamps in the tea-shop had been rendered necessary only by the faulty
construction of the premises and the dullness of the afternoon--and in
an open space I could see far enough for complete safety. Arriving at
the top of Sloane Street, I crossed Knightsbridge, and, entering Hyde
Park, struck out towards the Serpentine. Passing along the eastern
shore, I entered one of the long paths that lead towards the Marble Arch
and strode along it at such a pace as would make it necessary for any
pursuer to hurry in order to keep me in sight. Half-way across the great
stretch of turf, I halted for a few moments and noted the few people who
were coming in my direction. Then I turned sharply to the left and
headed straight for the Victoria Gate, but again, half-way, I turned off
among a clump of trees, and, standing behind the trunk of one of them,
took a fresh survey of the people who were moving along the paths. All
were at a considerable distance and none appeared to be coming my way.
I now moved cautiously from one tree to another and passed through the
wooded region to the south, crossed the Serpentine bridge at a rapid
walk and hurrying along the south shore left the Park by Apsley House.
From hence I walked at the same rapid pace along Piccadilly, insinuating
myself among the crowd with the skill born of long acquaintance with the
London streets, crossed amidst the seething traffic at the Circus,
darted up Windmill Street and began to zigzag amongst the narrow streets
and courts of Soho. Crossing the Seven Dials and Drury Lane I passed
through the multitudinous back-streets and alleys that then filled the
area south of Lincoln's Inn, came out by Newcastle Street, Holywell
Street and Half-Moon Alley into the Strand, which I crossed immediately,
ultimately entering the Temple by Devereux Court.
Even then I did not relax my precautions. From one court to another I
passed quickly, loitering in those dark entries and unexpected passages
that are known to so few but the regular Templars, and coming out into
the open only at the last where the wide passage of King's Bench Walk
admits of no evasion. Half-way up the stairs, I stood for some time in
the shadow, watching the approaches from the staircase window; and when,
at length, I felt satisfied that I had taken every precaution that was
possible, I inserted my key and let myself into our chambers.
Thorndyke had already arrived, and, as I entered, he rose to greet me
with an expression of evident relief.
"I am glad to see you, Jervis," he said. "I have been rather anxious
about you."
"Why?" I asked.
"For several reasons. One is that you are the sole danger that threatens
these people--as far as they know. Another is that we made a most
ridiculous mistake. We overlooked a fact that ought to have struck us
instantly. But how have you fared?"
"Better than I deserved. That good lady stuck to me like a burr--at
least I believe she did."
"I have no doubt she did. We have been caught napping finely, Jervis."
"How?"
"We'll go into that presently. Let us hear about your adventures first."
I gave him a full account of my movements from the time when we parted
to that of my arrival home, omitting no incident that I was able to
remember and, as far as I could, reconstituting my exceedingly devious
homeward route.
"Your retreat was masterly," he remarked with a broad smile. "I should
think that it would have utterly defeated any pursuer; and the only pity
is that it was probably wasted on the desert air. Your pursuer had by
that time become a fugitive. But you were wise to take these
precautions, for, of course, Weiss might have followed you."
"But I thought he was in Hamburg?"
"Did you? You are a very confiding young gentleman, for a budding
medical jurist. Of course we don't know that he is not; but the fact
that he has given Hamburg as his present whereabouts establishes a
strong presumption that he is somewhere else. I only hope that he has
not located you, and, from what you tell me of your later methods, I
fancy that you would have shaken him off even if he had started to
follow you from the tea-shop."
"I hope so too. But how did that woman manage to stick to me in that
way? What was the mistake we made?"
Thorndyke laughed grimly. "It was a perfectly asinine mistake, Jervis.
You started up Kennington Park Road on a leisurely, jog-trotting
omnibus, and neither you nor I remembered what there is underneath
Kennington Park Road."
"Underneath!" I exclaimed, completely puzzled for the moment. Then,
suddenly realizing what he meant, "Of course!" I exclaimed. "Idiot that
I am! You mean the electric railway?"
"Yes. That explains everything. Mrs. Schallibaum must have watched us
from some shop and quietly followed us up the lane. There were a good
many women about and several were walking in our direction. There was
nothing to distinguish her from the others unless you had recognized
her, which you would hardly have been able to do if she had worn a veil
and kept at a fair distance. At least I think not."
"No," I agreed, "I certainly should not. I had only seen her in a
half-dark room. In outdoor clothes and with a veil, I should never have
been able to identify her without very close inspection. Besides there
was the disguise or make-up."
"Not at that time. She would hardly come disguised to her own house,
for it might have led to her being challenged and asked who she was. I
think we may take it that there was no actual disguise, although she
would probably wear a shady hat and a veil; which would have prevented
either of us from picking her out from the other women in the street."
"And what do you think happened next?"
"I think that she simply walked past us--probably on the other side of
the road--as we stood waiting for the omnibus, and turned up Kennington
Park Road. She probably guessed that we were waiting for the omnibus and
walked up the road in the direction in which it was going. Presently the
omnibus would pass her, and there were you in full view on top keeping a
vigilant look-out in the wrong direction. Then she would quicken her
pace a little and in a minute or two would arrive at the Kennington
Station of the South London Railway. In a minute or two more she would
be in one of the electric trains whirling along under the street on
which your omnibus was crawling. She would get out at the Borough
Station, or she might take a more risky chance and go on to the
Monument; but in any case she would wait for your omnibus, hail it and
get inside. I suppose you took up some passengers on the way?"
"Oh dear, yes. We were stopping every two or three minutes to take up or
set down passengers; and most of them were women."
"Very well; then we may take it that when you arrived at the Mansion
House, Mrs. Schallibaum was one of your inside passengers. It was a
rather quaint situation, I think."
"Yes, confound her! What a couple of noodles she must have thought us!"
"No doubt. And that is the one consoling feature in the case. She will
have taken us for a pair of absolute greenhorns. But to continue. Of
course she travelled in your omnibus to Kensington--you ought to have
gone inside on both occasions, so that you could see every one who
entered and examine the inside passengers; she will have followed you to
Endsley Gardens and probably noted the house you went to. Thence she
will have followed you to the restaurant and may even have lunched
there."
"It is quite possible," said I. "There were two rooms and they were
filled principally with women."
"Then she will have followed you to Sloane Street, and, as you persisted
in riding outside, she could easily take an inside place in your
omnibus. As to the theatre, she must have taken it as a veritable gift
of the gods; an arrangement made by you for her special convenience."
"Why?"
"My dear fellow! consider. She had only to follow you in and see you
safely into your seat and there you were, left till called for. She
could then go home, make up for her part; draw out a plan of action,
with the help, perhaps, of Mr. Weiss, provide herself with the necessary
means and appliances and, at the appointed time, call and collect you."
"That is assuming a good deal," I objected. "It is assuming, for
instance, that she lives within a moderate distance of Sloane Square.
Otherwise it would have been impossible."
"Exactly. That is why I assume it. You don't suppose that she goes about
habitually with lumps of prepared sugar in her pocket. And if not, then
she must have got that lump from somewhere. Then the beads suggest a
carefully prepared plan, and, as I said just now, she can hardly have
been made-up when she met us in Kennington Lane. From all of which it
seems likely that her present abode is not very far from Sloane Square."
"At any rate," said I, "it was taking a considerable risk. I might have
left the theatre before she came back."
"Yes," Thorndyke agreed. "But it is like a woman to take chances. A man
would probably have stuck to you when once he had got you off your
guard. But she was ready to take chances. She chanced the railway, and
it came off; she chanced your remaining in the theatre, and that came
off too. She calculated on the probability of your getting tea when you
came out, and she hit it off again. And then she took one chance too
many; she assumed that you probably took sugar in your tea, and she was
wrong."
"We are taking it for granted that the sugar was prepared," I remarked.
"Yes. Our explanation is entirely hypothetical and may be entirely
wrong. But it all hangs together, and if we find any poisonous matter in
the sugar, it will be reasonable to assume that we are right. The sugar
is the Experimentum Crucis. If you will hand it over to me, we will go
up to the laboratory and make a preliminary test or two."
I took the lump of sugar from my pocket and gave it to him, and he
carried it to the gas-burner, by the light of which he examined it with
a lens.
"I don't see any foreign crystals on the surface," said he; "but we had
better make a solution and go to work systematically. If it contains any
poison we may assume that it will be some alkaloid, though I will test
for arsenic too. But a man of Weiss's type would almost certainly use an
alkaloid, on account of its smaller bulk and more ready solubility. You
ought not to have carried this loose in your pocket. For legal purposes
that would seriously interfere with its value as evidence. Bodies that
are suspected of containing poison should be carefully isolated and
preserved from contact with anything that might lead to doubt in the
analysis. It doesn't matter much to us, as this analysis is only for our
own information and we can satisfy ourselves as to the state of your
pocket. But bear the rule in mind another time."
We now ascended to the laboratory, where Thorndyke proceeded at once to
dissolve the lump of sugar in a measured quantity of distilled water by
the aid of gentle heat.
"Before we add any acid," said he, "or introduce any fresh matter, we
will adopt the simple preliminary measure of tasting the solution. The
sugar is a disturbing factor, but some of the alkaloids and most
mineral poisons excepting arsenic have a very characteristic taste."
He dipped a glass rod in the warm solution and applied it gingerly to
his tongue.
"Ha!" he exclaimed, as he carefully wiped his mouth with his
handkerchief, "simple methods are often very valuable. There isn't much
doubt as to what is in that sugar. Let me recommend my learned brother
to try the flavour. But be careful. A little of this will go a long
way."
He took a fresh rod from the rack, and, dipping it in the solution,
handed it to me. I cautiously applied it to the tip of my tongue and was
immediately aware of a peculiar tingling sensation accompanied by a
feeling of numbness.
"Well," said Thorndyke; "what is it?"
"Aconite," I replied without hesitation.
"Yes," he agreed; "aconite it is, or more probably aconitine. And that,
I think, gives us all the information we want. We need not trouble now
to make a complete analysis, though I shall have a quantitative
examination made later. You note the intensity of the taste and you see
what the strength of the solution is. Evidently that lump of sugar
contained a very large dose of the poison. If the sugar had been
dissolved in your tea, the quantity that you drank would have contained
enough aconitine to lay you out within a few minutes; which would
account for Mrs. Schallibaum's anxiety to get clear of the premises. She
saw you drink from the cup, but I imagine she had not seen you turn the
sugar out."
"No, I should say not, to judge by her expression. She looked
terrified. She is not as hardened as her rascally companion."
"Which is fortunate for you, Jervis. If she had not been in such a
fluster, she would have waited until you had poured out your tea, which
was what she probably meant to do, or have dropped the sugar into the
milk-jug. In either case you would have got a poisonous dose before you
noticed anything amiss."
"They are a pretty pair, Thorndyke," I exclaimed. "A human life seems to
be no more to them than the life of a fly or a beetle."
"No; that is so. They are typical poisoners of the worst kind; of the
intelligent, cautious, resourceful kind. They are a standing menace to
society. As long as they are at large, human lives are in danger, and it
is our business to see that they do not remain at large a moment longer
than is unavoidable. And that brings us to another point. You had better
keep indoors for the next few days."
"Oh, nonsense," I protested. "I can take care of myself."
"I won't dispute that," said Thorndyke, "although I might. But the
matter is of vital importance and we can't be too careful. Yours is the
only evidence that could convict these people. They know that and will
stick at nothing to get rid of you--for by this time they will almost
certainly have ascertained that the tea-shop plan has failed. Now your
life is of some value to you and to another person whom I could mention;
but apart from that, you are the indispensable instrument for ridding
society of these dangerous vermin. Moreover, if you were seen abroad and
connected with these chambers, they would get the information that their
case was really being investigated in a businesslike manner. If Weiss
has not already left the country he would do so immediately, and if he
has, Mrs. Schallibaum would join him at once, and we might never be able
to lay hands on them. You must stay indoors, out of sight, and you had
better write to Miss Gibson and ask her to warn the servants to give no
information about you to anyone."
"And how long," I asked, "am I to be held on parole?"
"Not long, I think. We have a very promising start. If I have any luck,
I shall be able to collect all the evidence I want in about a week. But
there is an element of chance in some of it which prevents me from
giving a date. And it is just possible that I may have started on a
false track. But that I shall be able to tell you better in a day or
two."
"And I suppose," I said gloomily, "I shall be out of the hunt
altogether?"
"Not at all," he replied. "You have got the Blackmore case to attend to.
I shall hand you over all the documents and get you to make an orderly
digest of the evidence. You will then have all the facts and can work
out the case for yourself. Also I shall ask you to help Polton in some
little operations which are designed to throw light into dark places and
which you will find both entertaining and instructive."
"Supposing Mrs. Hornby should propose to call and take tea with us in
the gardens?" I suggested.
"And bring Miss Gibson with her?" Thorndyke added dryly. "No, Jervis, it
would never do. You must make that quite clear to her. It is more
probable than not that Mrs. Schallibaum made a careful note of the house
in Endsley Gardens, and as that would be the one place actually known to
her, she and Weiss--if he is in England--would almost certainly keep a
watch on it. If they should succeed in connecting that house with these
chambers, a few inquiries would show them the exact state of the case.
No; we must keep them in the dark if we possibly can. We have shown too
much of our hand already. It is hard on you, but it cannot be helped."
"Oh, don't think I am complaining," I exclaimed. "If it is a matter of
business, I am as keen as you are. I thought at first that you were
merely considering the safety of my vile body. When shall I start on my
job?"
"To-morrow morning. I shall give you my notes on the Blackmore case and
the copies of the will and the depositions, from which you had better
draw up a digest of the evidence with remarks as to the conclusions that
it suggests. Then there are our gleanings from New Inn to be looked over
and considered; and with regard to this case, we have the fragments of a
pair of spectacles which had better be put together into a rather more
intelligible form in case we have to produce them in evidence. That will
keep you occupied for a day or two, together with some work
appertaining to other cases. And now let us dismiss professional topics.
You have not dined and neither have I, but I dare say Polton has made
arrangements for some sort of meal. We will go down and see."
We descended to the lower floor, where Thorndyke's anticipations were
justified by a neatly laid table to which Polton was giving the
finishing touches.